Spot It is a game that I enjoy using in my in-person classes, but sadly that hasn’t been possible this year. It’s a game that I sometimes buy as a gift for my young students, as it is a simple game that can be played almost anywhere with almost anyone.
One of my students had his birthday last week, and when I was back visiting my dad last month I decided to get him Spot It as a gift. Now I was faced with the challenge of figuring out how to teach him how to play while not being in person. I was a bit apprehensive, but I feel like it worked out pretty well.
How did I set things up?
First of all, I coordinated with the student’s father to pick up the physical game. (Alternatively, I could have sent it in the mail to them). In class I had his parents give him the gift as a surprise, and he opened it then. I then let him open the game and look at the cards.
After that, I shared a PowerPoint that I had made explaining the game. It’s too big to share here, but if you would like a copy of it leave a comment on this post or send me an email.
How do you play?
Spot It is a game of visual recognition and speed. There are 55 cards in total, and each card has 8 pictures on it. Every card has one picture that is the same as one picture on every other card. It’s possible that they are different sizes, but they are all the same color. The game relies on players being able to recognize the pairs on cards. An example with two cards is as follows:
There are some different variations, but the most common way of playing involves placing one card in the middle and distributing the rest of the cards to each player. (It’s ideal for between 2 and 4 people).
Players keep their cards face down in their hands or on the table, and they turn over their top card. They look to find the pair between their card and the card in the middle, and once they find it they announce it by saying “There are two ______.” (In the case of uncountable nouns, they say “There is a lot of _______.”) That player then puts her card on top of the card in the middle, and then she turns over her next card. Below is a picture of the initial setup for a 3-player game:
The game continues in this way with players putting their card onto the middle pile when they find a pair. The game continues until one player has no more cards left.
How did I keep my student engaged and teach him how to play?
When I was preparing it, I wanted to be cognizant of his attention span and also grade my language to his level.
As I was going through the PowerPoint, I realized that him having the cards in front of him was a great way of involving him in the lesson. When we looked at cards with new vocabulary on the PowerPoint, I asked him if he could find the same objects on his cards.
We then looked at singular and plural forms of nouns, and in that way we recycled the vocabulary. I also made a competition between the two of us to see who could find each object on our cards first. (I had my copy of the game in front of me in case I needed to show him a word he didn’t know.)
We didn’t have enough time to get through everything, so we carried over the singular and plural forms to the next class. It also gave him time to look at the cards, and I was sure to repeat the new vocabulary many times when speaking.
I then sent him the page with singular and plural forms to use as a reference. He can also show it to his family or friends when they play.
What happens next?
Unfortunately I cannot play Spot It with my students in person, but what I can do is prepare them to be able to play with their families.
We will do some more practice with the vocabulary and using “There is” and “There are”, but in a few classes I will have him play with a family member while I watch
My hopes is that this will be a fun, easy game he can play in English that will be away from a screen. I think lower level students need more support than I originally anticipated, but putting in that work reaps it rewards in the future.
Have you used Spot It or a similar game in your classes? If so, feel free to leave a comment below about your experience.
