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Bringing International Games in to the Classroom

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During a lecture, we were considering the games we played as a child and how they related to our country, the innate parts of being human and the impacts that some games had on our futures.

It was interesting to see that the most prominent games played were schools (where we were all the teacher) and tig, or tag, or whatever you call it in your area…

After looking at the importance of the games we played as children, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the types of games played in other countries and see how  they relate to the country, and how we could incorporate these games in our own teaching. I found one game that I thought would be very fun and very thought provoking.

 

Greece (Push to Play, no date)

In Greece, they have a game called Agalmata (Greek for statues). In this game, you have someone who is “it”, and they stand in the middle of the area with their eyes closed. “It” has to count to at least 10, but they can keep counting higher, they are the only one who knows when they are going to stop. During this time, everyone else is running around. When “it” shouts “agalmata” (or “statues” to make it easier) everyone needs to stand like a statue they have seen (e.g. the statue of liberty, the thinking man, a javelin thrower) – the children may have decided to pick up items, like a stick, to make their statue more realistic. “it” needs to look at everyone and if they see someone moving, they have to go and tig them. If someone has been tigged, they either become it (the way I would play it to ensure full participation) or the person is out and the next round is played.

I like this game because it is a bit like a combination of Musical Statues and What’s the Time Mr Wolf. It clearly shows a link to the heritage of Greece as there are statues everywhere as they represent the incredible Greek history.

 

Outcome:

Soc 2-19a – By comparing the lifestyle and culture of citizens in another country with those of Scotland, I can discuss the similarities and differences. 

L.I.:

I can play the game “statues” and compare the game to some of the games we play in Scotland

S.C. :

  • I know how to play the game statues 
  • I understand how Statues relates to the lifestyle and culture in Greece 
  • By looking at the features of Statues, I can think of games with similarities in Scotland

 

Push to Play (2018). Agalmata – Push2Play presented by Saskatchewan Blue Cross – Active Games for Kids. [online] Push2play.ca. Available at: http://www.push2play.ca/games/agalmata/ [Accessed 7 Oct. 2018].

Effective Learning and Teaching: What Does it Look Like?

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Everyone can remember certain things from primary school, whether it be a single lesson or a full topic, but why do we remember them? We remember them because they were fun. I don’t remember learning how to subtract one number from another, other than I had a Heinemann workbook to help me. What I do remember is learning about World War 2 in P6.

I remember the World War 2 topic because we got involved, we got to have an election where we created political parties and voted for the party we liked the most based on the policies they created and debated over. We learned songs like Run Rabbit Run and Roll Out the Barrel. The teacher would play a bomb siren noise and we would hide under the table. We got to feel like we were taken back in time to the war.

Thinking back to this topic, I have bits I would love to magpie, bits I would like to make my own, and bits that I would like to add to make the topic even better. This topic is one that has inspired me, and my teaching, and I would love to have this impact on the children I teach when I have my own classes.