Halloween Zombie Shooting Game
By Melissa Noad
Files
Instructions
Print out 10 copies of each colour of zombie. If you have very large classes, you will want to make copies of all of the colours on the page. For small classes, think about the number of groups you need and print the ones you want accordingly. Laminate the zombies and cut them out. Buy some standard plastic straws, and cut them into about 1 inch pieces. Using hot glue, glue the straw to the back of the zombie in the center. Glue a small round magnet to the back of the straw. The magnets and straws are available at 100 yen stores. You can buy packs of 18 of thick, small round magnets in some 100 yen stores (I recommend these ones). You will also need a package of plastic balls, which you can also buy at 100 yen stores. I bought a pack of colourful lightweight balls about 5-6cm in diameter. The reason for the straw is so that the zombies will fall off the board when they are hit by the balls. Playing this game on blackboards does not damage the board, but I would worry about whiteboards (I have never played it on a whiteboard, but I imagine it could possibly cause damage [blackboard = made of stone, whiteboard = not made of stone]).
Directions
- Put students into groups of 3-5 (2 if your class is very small).
- Put the zombies on the blackboard into coloured groups (red zombies in one spot of the board, etc.).
- Explain that the students are under attack by zombies. They must shoot down the zombies that are after their group.
- Have students janken to choose the order that they will answer in in their groups. The first student to answer in each group will stand up (this stops one student from answering all the questions).
- The first student to raise their hand and answer correctly gets to throw a ball at their team's zombies. Make sure to define a line where the students have to shoot from. You might need to clear some desks at the front of the room to make space for throwing. I like to make a zombie graveyard on the end of the board for somewhere to put the shot zombies.
- You can choose to give more balls for more diffcult questions. This definitely raises motivation in the classroom!
- The group with the most zombies shot wins the game! Make sure to give them some kind of cool Halloween prize!
Alternative Version
- (Inspired by Jon Parsons) Draw a grid on the board so that each team has a column of about 5 spaces. Each team has one column. Put a zombie at the top of the column in the team's colour and a brain at the bottom. Each team must write the answer to a question in a time limit (you can use re-usable white boards to save on paper). Each team that can write the answer in the time limit is safe and can try to shoot their zombie. Each team that cannot has the zombie moved forward one space. The team with the most zombies shot is the winner.
- (Read & Run Version) Create 10-15 Halloween questions and make a list of them to put outside the classroom door. Write the correcponding number of questions along the top of the board and draw vertical lines down from the numbers to make the racing board. Put a zombie of different colours for each team. One student in each group will run to read the question, remember it, and bring it back to the group. Together, the students will come up with an answer (they can write it to add that to the lesson), and the next student will present the answer to the teacher. If the answer is right, the group gets to move their zombie forward. To add more interest in the game, you can stick special questions to the board. When students land on it, they can try to answer the question to get some balls to shoot other zombies with. If the other teams' zombies are shot, they must answer an extra question before moving on.
Note: Students don't have to throw the ball really hard to knock off the zombies. For some reason the girls who throw lightly underhand tend to get tons down!
Also, this game can get crazy exciting and noisy, so make sure the neighbouring class is cool with it and aren't writing tests while you do this...
