White Board Vocabulary Challenge

My students love this game.

This timed vocab game gives them the outlet they're looking for all day.

A race against the clock. 

A group activity on their feet!

Use of the teacher's markers.

Allowance to be loud/cheer when their team wins. 
The opportunity to challenge their classmates.



Here, students are thinking of words associated with the skeletal system.

The concept is simple and doesn't require anything you don't already have in your classroom. Students are given a topic and they have 2-6 minutes to write as many words per team that relate to the topic at hand. They can write one word at a time each time it's their turn. 

We've played a couple of different ways:

If BOTH teams have the same word written then it doesn't count as a point for either (think, Scattergories). This alleviates some cheating and it can also be used as a strategy to use against the other team - I don't tell my kids that though! 

I've also rolled my anchor chart stand in between the two teams so they can't copy each other and count every applicable word per team. Whatever works for you and your kids!

This game can be used for any subject to review. It also gives you a good idea of what your students know. It can also be beneficial to do this challenge before you've taught anything about a topic to give yourself some insight on your students background knowledge.  

Divide your board, line up your teams, set the clock, and go!