As you may have heard me mention in other blog posts, my go-to solution for getting the most out of a text is to GAMIFY (aka trick them into re-reading).

What about when fatigue has us feeling stuck in a rut game-wise? During the mid-winter months, creativity feels lower and burnout feels higher. It’s tempting to stick to the same re-reading games just because they’re familiar and easy.

To counteract this rut, I love to invent super-low prep twists on familiar games like Bingo and Tic-Tac-Toe. These twists are fast to teach and super versatile.

Today I want to feature my newest invention: ¡Tic-Tac-Número!

Game Set-Up

Since this is a mash-up of Bingo and Tic-Tac-Toe, it’s super quick to explain.

Super Low-Prep Materials:

• Any printed-out text with line numbers on the left margin. Pro-tip: it works best when sentences aren’t split over two different lines.

• 1 red marker

• 1 blue marker

• 1 game board (download freebie below!)

How to Play:

• Form groups of 3.

• Distribute the printed-out texts to each student. and one game board. per group.

• Students Rotate Roles Each Round:

  Role 1: Marcador Azul

  Role 2: Marcador Rojo

  Role 3: Lector/a

• To Play:

• Out of sight* from the Lector/a, the Marcador Azul and Marcador Rojo randomly write 5 line numbers in their columns. No numbers can be repeated during the round.

• Then, the Lector/a reads a line from the story in Spanish or English.

• Both Marcadores look for the sentence in the reading. If it matches a number they wrote, they say “Tengo #__!” and write that number in their color on the tic-tac-toe grid. If they don’t have the number, they say “No lo tengo.”

• Play continues until a Marcador gets a row of tic-tac-toe (3 squares) and wins the game.

*It’s crucial that the Lector/a doesn’t see the numbers on the grid - if so, kids could accuse them of playing favorites when choosing which sentences to read.

More thoughts and a Free Download…

I’ve attached a FREE DOWNLOAD of the Tic-Tac-Número instructions and a blank game board when you sign up for the newsletter below. You’ll also find a growing collection of ready-to-use stories with line numbers in my TpT store, CI Cuentos.

For example…

Check out this compelling story that comes with the Tic-Tac-Número game built-in on the worksheet! Read about Juan, a shy kid who has a crush on Inés. Will he find the courage to send her a Valentine's invitation to dinner or will he let fear win out?

If you try this, pop back here and let me know how it goes!

Wishing you all the very best,

Catherine

shop here: CI Cuentos Store

Join our Facebook group here: French Toast Cuentos World Language Collaboration

Check out this previous post about the re-reading race game I made called ¡Agarra el Número! It’s SO easy to play, low-prep, and has the bonus effect of reviewing numbers - includes a free download too!