One the easiest game, one everyone knows so you won’t have to teach the game. Instead you’ll be able to teach language!
Checkers is one of the easiest games to learn. Most children like it and adults never forget how to play it. Many years ago I started to use it to teach grammar. It started with the Simple Present and the 3rd person -s. However, I’ve used it with so many different things I think you can teach virtually anything using it.
Here’s a list of topics I’ve worked on with this: phrasal verbs, prepositions (at, in, on), Simple Present, phonemes, stress patterns and word formation. I’m sure you can come up with other ideas for how to use this, wouldn’t you like to share?
The pictures describe how I build my pieces and the image I use for the board. If you laminate these (like I do) they’ll last and you can reuse your pieces if you make them in card. I have a box of different sets according to what I want to work on.
The rules are the normal checkers’ rules with a twist, you can only take your opponents piece if they’re a match. For example: if black has “in” and white has “June”. Sometimes the game will come to a dead end, which can also happen when playing the regular game. Just tell your students that the player who has taken more pieces wins the match and that they can have another turn. Hope you like it.
Click on the links below to get materials and see how to adapt the game!