Using Pictionary to review vocabulary words

Have you ever thought of using Pictionary to review vocabulary words with your class.  Its a great activity for your visual learners and games always make reviewing vocabulary words much more fun.

For this to be a really effective game, when you first introduce a word, have your student make a visual representation of the word.  This way,  when your students have to figure out a way to draw the word cluster, temperature, or prediction, they have already had practice making a drawing of the vocabulary term.  They will then be able to better recognize other students attempts at representing that same vocabulary word.

The following is a set of steps that you could use to play Pictionary in your classroom.

1. Create a list of words that have previously been introduced and taught in the classroom.  Put these words on index cards or other slips of paper.
2. Divide the class into two teams.  You can also have the whole class guess if you don't want it to be a competition. 
3. Make sure that you introduce the rules of Pictionary as all students might not be familiar with how to play the game.
4. Each student gets to draw a card, and then has 15 secs to thinks about the word before they draw it.  No numbers, letters, or words can be used in the drawing.
5. The student starts drawing the word and then team members make guesses.  After a certain amount of time, I use 2 minuets, the other team can start making guesses too. 
6. The team who guesses correctly earns one point for their team.
7. Continue having the teams take turns as time allows. 
8. If no one can guess the word after 4 minuets the student who drew the picture can explain what their word was and then their turn is over.

For more great ideas to use as vocabulary games visit my vocabulary games page.