Kids Creating: Games For Learning

My students love to play games, but I was struggling to keep up with them in terms of differentiation and keeping it fresh.  One morning on my way to work, I had a brainstorm: Why can't they help make games to meet their needs?!?
I started with the game ZAP (also known as BANG, KABOOM, etc) with popsicle sticks.  Students have played this game in the past, and the prep was simple, so this made sense for their first creation. Our current class goal is that each student will learn 20 sight words in 10 weeks.  Each student's list is different based on the words each child knew on the first day of our goal.  This gave each child a chance to practice his/her words and a game to take home and play with someone at home.

On the table, there were: Ziploc bags, flair pens and fine tipped Sharpies, popsicle sticks and each child's individual word list.  Students wrote each of their words on a stick (one word per stick) and made one ZAP stick.  All their sticks went into a Ziploc bag to go home.

They took so much pride in their work!  I told them how important it would be use their best writing so they could read the words when they got home.  If they can't read the words on the sticks, then they can't learn them!  This was most definitely a "win" in their book, which makes it a "win" in my book too.

Our next attempt at game making was Candy Land cards.  I've been making Candy Land cards for a couple years after seeing a few different pins and TPT products with customized Candy Land cards.  I just created a square using the shape tool on a label and filled the squares to match the colors on a Candy Land board.

I printed a set of labels for each child (CVC, CVCe, CVCC, CCVC, digraphs, etc) and cut cardstock into 2x3 rectangles.  Students affixed their labels to the cardstock rectangles then put them in a baggie and took them home to play with their Candy Land boards they already have at home.

For those that don't have a Candy Land board at home, I created one using colored squares.  After printing them, students glued them to a file folder.

The last game we created recently is Tic-Tac-Toe.  I created a board for students, and they took it from there.  Students filled in each of the 9 spaces with one of their sight words.  Then, they played Tic-Tac-Toe as you typically would, but they had to read the word before they could cover the space.

We started off with their sight word lists, and since it was such a hit, they played again using teen numbers.  When playing the game, they used colored cubes so they can play multiple times on the same board.  We talked about all the different things they could use at home (coins, small toys, cereal, pasta) for board markers so they don't have to write on it using X's and O's.  You can download a free Tic-Tac-Toe board here.

There are so many literacy skills that could be covered by simply changing how students program the cards/playing space.  As a kindergarten teacher, rhyming, syllables, sight words, letter sounds,  and letter identification are skills I think of quickly. I hope this gives you an idea or two for your own classroom.  I plan to have my students create another game or two for use over Winter Break.