Aim of the Game
To win the opportunity to draw a line between two points on the game board and eventually to create boxes by adding reduced participle clauses to sentences. The team that ‘finishes’ the creation of a box wins that box. The team that has the most boxes at the end of the game is the winner.
Procedure
Stick the game board up on the whiteboard or somewhere where it is visible to the whole class.
Split the class into two teams and get them to choose names or colours for their teams.
Explain or elicit how to play the game. Do some examples with easy questions at the beginning so that everyone is clear how to play.
Teams take it in turns to play. The teacher reads out a sentence and the team have to add a reduced participle clause to the sentence so that it makes more sense (e.g. ‘Medicines should be free’ becomes ‘Medicines needed by cancer patients should be free’) If they add in the participle clause correctly, they win the chance to play on the game board. This involves choosing a place to draw a line between two adjacent dots on the board, either horizontally (e.g. from B2 to C2) or vertically (e.g. C3 to C4) but not diagonally. If they can insert both a present participle clause (‘Medicines containing only natural substances should be free’) and a past participle clause into the sentence they can draw two lines on the game board within the same go.
Teams continue to take turns inserting participle clauses and drawing lines on the board. When a team manages to finish creating a box (e.g. lines B2 to C2, C2 to C3, B2to B3 and B3 to C3) they win that box for their team. It does not matter who drew the previous lines in creating the box - the team that finishes the box wins it for their team. Write the initial of the team name in the box or shade it in in the team’s colour to record who won the box.
The game can continue until all possible lines have been drawn, although you may wish to play to a time limit or number of sentences limit to shorten the game.
Count up the number of boxes won by each team - the team with the most boxes is the winner.
Variations
After the game has finished, learners can discuss the sentences created during the game.
There is also a blank version so you can adapt to your own activity.