Category board 2

Objective & content

Category board 2 is a projected team board game, a sequel to Category board, for one game of 20 to 30 minutes. The board has five categories (At home, In the kitchen, Toys, Music, Weather) and five values from 100 to 500, so 25 squares. Teams take turns to choose a square, answer its question and win its points. In the first four categories, 100 is a photo, 200 a close-up of a photo, 300 a "Who am I?", 400 a sentence to complete and 500 "Name three ..."; the Weather category uses words only (two clues, a sentence to complete, a "Who am I?" and "Name three ..."). Pupils revise everyday words from five topics and answer short questions in English.

Pedagogical guide

The PDF is clickable: on the board slide, every square opens its question; Show the answer opens the answer slide; Back to the board returns to the board. The teacher does not need to search through the slides, so the class chooses the order of the game. This board is a sequel to Category board and plays differently: the values rise with the difficulty, from a photo to name (100) to a close-up of a photo to recognise (200), then a "Who am I?" with three clues to read (300), a sentence to complete (400) and three words to find (500). The Weather category uses words only, with no photos. Some answer slides add a note, for example "Also right: toilet roll" or "Also right: saucepan". Useful language for the teams: "Music 300, please!", "I think it's a ...", "Are you a ...?", "Our turn!". The game stays at A2- level, in British English.

Suggested procedure

1. (3 min) Make 2 to 4 teams. Draw the 25 numbers on the whiteboard, like the board on the screen, and a score table next to it.
2. (2 min) Show the How to play slide, then the board.
3. (15 to 20 min) Teams take turns. A team chooses a square, for example "Music 300", and the teacher clicks it. The team answers; a right answer wins the points of the square (for a "Name three ..." square, three right words). Click Show the answer, cross the square off on the whiteboard and click Back to the board. The next team chooses.
4. (2 min) When the board is empty, or at the end of the time, add up the points and show the last slide, "Who won?".

Adaptations

[S] Let a team ask its classmates for help once in the game, or give 30 seconds to talk before it answers. Start with the 100 and 200 squares.

[A] If a team gives a wrong answer, let the next team try to answer for half the points. For the 500 squares, ask for four or five words.

Materials & prerequisites

A computer and a projector or screen for game.pdf (53 slides in 16:9), opened in a PDF reader that follows links (Acrobat, Edge or Chrome), and a whiteboard for the 25 numbers and the scores. Pupils should already know basic words for the home, the kitchen, toys, musical instruments and the weather. The game works well as a revision game at the end of a term or as a reward at the end of a lesson.