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History Pictionary
Subject: History
(This idea was contributed by Robin James)
Age Range: 11 and over

While trying to think of a way to motivate junior high students to be attentive to a pre-test review, I realised there were a lot of visual images related to the test. That reminded me of how much fun playing pictionary is to me and my friends.

I took as many topics / items / questions in the test and started thinking about what I could draw. Ideas came to mind, but I'm no artist. Then it dawned on me to use clipart. I have several CDs with clipart so I just started word searching the items I wanted to draw. I was able to find pretty much everything I needed.

Next, I prepared a list of topics / words / terms and beside each one I pasted or hand copied the art on my paper.

When I did this activity in class, I called on volunteers to draw. At first only one or two volunteered, the best artists. But as soon we started everyone wanted in on the fun.

When students came forward I gave them a topic and asked if they had an idea of what to draw. if they did, I let them go for it. If they didn't I showed them my art work and told them that is what i would draw if I were doing it.

This is the most animated and active this class has ever been. It was fun and it was educational.

I give them candy as a reward for correctly identifying the correct-answer.

This has been a huge success and I have used several times in classes from 7th to 11th.


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