Follow with me each day as I post my 12 gifts of Christmas for teachers. Each day will have a tip to encourage engaged learning in your classroom and a free gift to accompany that tip. Here goes the first day!

On the first day of Christmas, Elementary Ali gave to me…

One super exciting learning board game!

One of my favorite ways to get students engaged is a common game turned learning tool. What would be more fun than running around a life sized board game and learning along the way?!?

Take any game you played as a kid (monopoly, go fish, war, candy land, taboo, chutes and ladders, operation, barrel of monkeys…) and change the words or rules to fit your learning objective! It sounds like a lot of work, but it really doesn’t have to be 🙂

Your first gift of Christmas is a barrel monkeys game template. A barrel of monkeys works perfect for placing items in sequence. Think about the fun your kids will have hanging monkeys in order to show what they know about the carbon dioxide-oxygen cycle or the events of a story.

A simple classroom-sized board game can be made by placing sheets of construction paper in a path around the room. Glue or tape 6 pieces together to make a life-sized dice to go with it. Make it a learning game by writing challenge questions on each space, or on cards, as a requirement to move the spaces they roll. Easy peasy and really fun!