Description

About The Game:

Grab the Gold is a fun, engaging whole group game that is sure to please. Teachers will love having the opportunity to select the words students practice and students will love having the chance to ‘play.’ Read words and collect gold, but be careful, there are some special slides that can change the game.  You never know what that lucky leprechaun will do.

What You Need:

This game is played using PowerPoint software so you will need to have that downloaded on your computer. You will also need a way to project the game onto a board. In addition, you will want to have ‘something’ to use as your gold pieces. You may utilize yellow pompoms, plastic gold coins, buttons, snap cubes, or whatever thematic objects you have available in your classroom. The amount that you need will depend upon how many word slides you use. If you are using 20 word slides, I would have 30-35 objects. The more slides you use, the more objects you will need. You will also need a container to place these items in (I use a plastic black pot—cauldron) and two team buckets.

How To Play:

Divide your class into two teams. Each team lines up in front of your Smartboard or whatever you are using to project this game, but only the first student from each team will stand when it is their turn. Under the playing screen, place your ‘pot of gold’ in the middle and your team buckets on either side of the pot and in front of each team. As you progress each slide, students will race to be the first student to read the word displayed. The team that says it correctly first, gets a piece of gold to place in their team bucket. However, there are some special slides that will help keep things interesting and ensure that the best readers are not always the players that win every time. These special slides have images that may be displayed on the right or left side of the slide. Depending on which side it appears, the special slide will apply to that team. Special slides include: Take 2: That team gets to grab two pieces of gold for their team. Get 3 From Them: That team takes 3 pieces of gold from the other team’s bucket. Get 5 From The Pot: That team member takes 5 pieces of gold from the middle pot of gold. Put All Back: All the pieces of gold from that team go back into the pot of gold in the middle. When the Game Over slide appears, the players standing count their teams’ gold to find their total. The team with the most is the winner.

Editing This Game For Your Own Use:

It is important to note that there are over 100 slides in this game with various high-frequency words listed. These may or may not be words that you use in your classroom. For that reason, this game is editable. Kid-Friendly Font: Unless you already have the font I used to create this game, when you open this file the default font will most likely not be ‘kid friendly.’ For that reason, you are going to need to download a font that is better suited to primary students. I suggest you download and install the free font: KG Miss Kindergarten. Just click on the font name or HERE and it will take you to TpT where you can download it for free. Make sure that you restart your computer after installing it or it won’t work. Once you have it installed, you can change the size of the font, bold it, change the color of the font, and change the words as you see fit.

To Remove Slides: If you feel like there are too many slides for your class, you can move the slides and add them as needed. I would suggest that you simply move the last slide (The Game Over slide) to the spot where you would like your game to end, leaving the extra slide behind so you still have them when you are ready for them. You can do this by selecting the ‘View’ function in PowerPoint at the top and then selecting ‘Slide Sorter.’ This option will show you all the slides available in this game and allow you to simply drag and move them as needed.

Playing The Game: When you are ready to play the game, open the game file using PowerPoint and select ‘Slide Show’ at the top of the page. From there, select ‘Play From Start.’ As you click the ’next’ arrow (return or page down) the slide elements and slides will progress. This game does include some fun sounds and music, so make sure you have your volume up for students to hear.

More Help: If you have difficulties playing this game, please do not hesitate to contact me at differentatedkindergarten@gmail.com I am always happy to help out.