Don’t like saying goodbye? Create a board game!

And so, we’re here at the end of the school year, our courses are ending, we’re moving on, time to say goodbye and so on and so forth. We’re handing out the certificates and then we have to do something to kill the time.

Some teachers go with the road so far activities, but I’m not really a fan of those. Who are we trying to fool, both me and my students are thinking about holidays and chilling out – I’m not really the most sentimental teacher ever, yeah, I know 😉 I mean, I don’t mind most of my students, I even like some of them, but you won’t see me cry while saying goodbye. So, to avoid embarrassing moments and awkward silence, I go with a game.

Now, during the course all of my students had more than one opportunity to play a board game, so they’re more or less familiar with the topic, they know what they like (or dislike), so I spend a lesson (90 minutes is optional for a simple game) sometime before the end of the course on making their own board games (a nice group activity by the way) and after handing out the certificate I let them test one another’s ideas.

Naturally, I can’t just give the students pens&papers and tell them “now, make me a game”. There always have to be some rules and some issues covered:

Brainstorm – a crucial stage, coming up with the ideas, plot, zombies, rainbows, puppies, tanks and whatever springs to the students’ minds
Goals – some basic questions need to be answered, like – how many players can participate, how long does the game last, is it based on luck (rolling dice) or skill (answering questions etc.) or a mix of both and the most important thing: how do we win?
Basic rules – it’s important to write them down and read them aloud to make sure they’re really simple, we don’t have time for overly complicated sets
Sketch of a board – obviously, not many board games require no board 🙂

Now, it may take some time, sometimes 90 minutes is not enough, so make sure you’ll have some spare time to finish the projects, I usually do the design part 2-3 lessons before the final classes, just to make sure everything’s ready. I want to share the simple Snakes and Ladders pattern a group of my pre-int+ girls played today. They had fun, so did I – and it was good to say goodbye after an hour of good fun.

Enjoy!