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May 4, 2011

"Beat the Teacher" is NOT What You Think It Is

Words.
Image from Flickr.com nicasaurusrex

This activity is really called, 'Making Words', but since I'm part of playing the game -- and I play to win -- it has been renamed 'Beat the Teacher'. Students are given between 6 and 8 letters and are given about 10 minutes to make as many words as they can from those letters. I then write all the words I have come up with on the board. Once I have exhausted what I believe to be all possible words I turn to the class and call out, 'Beat the Teacher'. At this point any student who has a word which I do not have gets to call it out and the class gets a point for the word. Points are tallied with the goal of beating the class score from last year (currently 235), with a resulting pizza party. At the end of the activity, students must write a sentence using at least two of the words from the board. Those sentences that are considered 'WOW!' are posted on our wiki for you to read (I do not edit student work). Enjoy!