Back-to-Back Assessment Game... My favorite!

Want a quick, easy, and fun way to trick your students into learning assess a skill? You've gotta play "Back-to-Back"!

Check out this not-high-quality video that I shot with T and C after school today (thanks T and C's moms!)...  It's a little wobbly!  Next time I'll use my camera and not my phone!

I was chewing gum and didn't even realize how awful it sounded but after numerous re-starts of the taping due to interruptions and giggles, the boys would have never forgiven me if I had made them do this over one more time!  So, sorry if I sound gross!  Also, I'm going through that "Ewww!  Is that how my voice sounds?!" thing right now.  Ewww!

I've never videoed anything for my blog before, so hopefully this works out!

I love this game and we do it weekly to practice tons of skills.  I can quickly look around the room and see who is getting answers right and who is struggling and it gets my kiddos up and moving.

I use it often during Daily Five as I have amassed a large collection of task cards that I didn't know what to do with.  I can read them orally, provide the choices, and then use this game to review the grammar skills and comprehension skills we practice during language arts.

Here are the basics of the directions for the game if the video wasn't clear...

*Choose your questions.
*Have students get back-to-back with a partner (say "Back-to-back!")
*Read the question.
*Students will choose their answer- sign language letters, thumbs up/down, show a card (ie. periods vs. question marks- you'd read a sentence and have the students show the correct end mark), etc...
*Be sure they cover up their answer with their free hand!
*Say "Turn around and show your partner".
*Same answer, 1 high five.
*Reveal the answer.
*Students give a double high five if they got it right.
*Say "Back-to-back!" and let the fun continue!
*At the end, I always have my students thank their partners!

Here are some of the ways I use this:
*with my huge mountain of task cards and students either write answers on a dry erase board or use sign language (like in the video) to hold up their choice of answer... we do this A LOT!
*math flash cards (students write answers on a dry erase board)
*true/false (thumbs up or down)
*syllables (show the correct number of fingers for the syllables)
*punctuation marks (would require the kids to have some sort of paper with the choices on it)

Patty at 2nd in Line shared some spelling cards the other day.  I was thinking these would be great for "Back-to-Back".  You could print them, display them on your document camera, and then students could hold up their sign language letter to match their choice!  Then just put up the next card! 

I hope this was helpful- if you have any other ideas on how to use this, I'd love for you to share them!  Hopefully I was clear (yeah- as mud!) with how this works in my classroom.  It's a super quick game to implement and works really well in a pinch.  I taught the game to my mixed group of K, 1, and 2 students during our reading interventions time today in about 2 minutes and then read them task cards to practice predicting outcomes.  It went well!

So, anyway, let me know what you think!

PS- my students were AMAZING while our Daily Five visitor was in today!  My kiddos always do a great job during Daily Five, as they love that time of the day so much... but I was one proud teacher!

Adding this pic to make this post PINNABLE!!!  This IS NOT the video... check out the video above to see us playing the game!