Group Formation: All Aboard! Tim's terrific train game

Just thought I'd include a game idea that works really well for me here at my school in Fengyuan in Taiwan.

First, I split my class into two teams and then draw two sets of train tracks from the bottom of the whiteboard to the top(one for each team).

Normally I split the track into between 13 to 15 places by drawing sleepers across the track. At the top of the board I draw a picture of some exotic or cool place that you can travel to by train: ie: Taipei, Kenting or for Halloween I drew a haunted house.

I then run a normal writing or spelling game(ie:spell elephant number 3!) and have the winning player roll a dice. The number they land on is the number of spaces they move along the train track towards their destination. The team whose train gets there first is the winner.

To make it more interesting I mark a couple of the squares with stuff like 'water over track - go back two places' or 'downhill run- go forward 3'.

I even draw little trains on the side of the track to add to the fun. The kids really dig it and you can easily use current vocab words for team names to further their learning.

Tim Davis
Fengyuan
Taiwan