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Carrie L., Michigan

I thought I’d share the effectiveness of a game that someone mentioned on here awhile ago. I think I adapted it a bit, but not sure about the original post or what the suggestion was. 

I play tic-tac- toe with my students to do review. I found this week that it was a great way to get the quietest and most nervous students to smile and be excited about playing a ‘game’. It worked this week with a 16 year old student as well. 

I put up a tic-tac-toe board on my white board. I either have the students play against me (and they’re a team) or they play against each other. (I just have 2, but you could split into larger groups). 

I have them draw a popcycle stick with a song on it. If they can START it, then they get a O or X if they can’t in a split second then I get the O if they’re playing against me or they just skip their turn and the next team goes. 

If they are a ‘team’ then they can help each other and figure it out as long as they do it quickly. 

I make a big deal out of the fact that I rarely ever win cause they’re soooo good at it!

I play this game for 5 minutes at the end of a lesson to just check up on their playlist. The youngest to the oldest of my kid students enjoy it and I can tell which songs are not thoughtless. 

Mark M., New York

I’ve recently used the tic tac toe game as well. When I introduce it, as opposed to giving anyone the impression that they are playing against another student or against me, I make clear that we’re all on the same team playing against “mistakes,” and that I or whoever is just filling in the board for “mistakes.” This seems to help foster a good spirit for the game. 

I found it really helpful to introduce this for some students who were having trouble developing good practice habits. They now play it at home and it seems to help.

I noticed sometimes when I tried it at home during my daughter’s practice that she would at times get very upset about losing. At first I felt reluctant to keep introducing it, but I realized those were just some feelings to help her through, to be present for, and she was eventually able to play it again with more ability to respond to a loss with an increase motivation to do better rather than just being upset and not wanting to play anymore.