Glow Games

Place Value Unit Review with a Twist

This is my 2nd year doing a Glow Day classroom transformation. After posting pictures on my Instagram page a lot of you wanted to learn more about each activity, so I figured why not make this my first blog post. Since this is my second time doing glow games in my classroom I did not buy all of the supplies needed at once. I bought some last year and bought a few more things this year. So do not feel like you have to fork out a couple hundred bucks to pull this transformation off. This classroom transformation is Get Your Teach On inspired. Here is the link that will take you to my Glow Games Amazon list- www.amazon.com/shop/edventuresofateacher

To get my students excited about Glow Games the day before I sent home these Glow Games tickets. Man those kids were pumped to come to school the next day. After school that day the transformation begun. I blew up 20 neon balloons and tied a piece of ribbon at the end. I hung the balloons in my classroom ceiling tiles. I painted the backdrop that would cover my classroom window. I had five blacklights that I scattered throughout my room. I had seven different glow games throughout my room.   

Game #1- TIC-TAC-TOE

I made three tic-tac-toe boards on my carpet with neon tape. The glow sticks were the game pieces. I just made circle pieces but used two different colors. During glow games, students had task cards where they had to practice putting numbers into standard form.

Game #2- GLOW DICE

Another glow game my class played was the dice game. I got 4 inflatable dice from the target dollar spot a couple of years back. The dice didn’t glow so I put highlighted sticker dots on each side of the dice so that they would glow in the blacklight. Students had to roll 3 dice and then put the number they rolled into word form.

Game #3- BASKETBALL

 I bought dollar tree baskets and lined them a neon orange tape. The ball used was bought from Walmart’s party section. It was only a dollar so I bought enough for three basketball stations. The basketballs used are like glow sticks so they will fade after a days use, but a day was all I needed them for. At the basketball station, students had to find the missing number in the pattern.

Game #4- HEADBANDS.

I bought a pack of neon headbands at the dollar store. Students had numbers in expanded form on their head and their partner would read them the number in expanded form and the student would write it down in standard form.

Game #5- GLOW BOWLING

I bought the inflatable bowling pin set from the target dollar spot the same time I bought the inflatable dice. The bowling set didn’t glow so I put neon reflective tape at the top of the pins so they could be seen better in the blacklights. At the bowling station students had a set of task cards where students had to compare numbers using less than, greater than, or equal to.

Game #6- PING TOSS

I had two stations of the ping toss. Before glow day I bought black science project display boards and hot glued neon cups to each board. On each cup I wrote a number under 1,000. At the station students had to work together to get three ping pong balls into any of the cups on the board. Once they make their shots students had to look at all three numbers and order them from greatest to least.

Those were all of the games we played during Glow Games. When students had finished their station they would raise their hand and I would move them to one of the open stations. Total I had 14 different game stations, but I had multiple stations of the same game. I had 3 tic-tac-toe boards, 2 ping toss areas, 3 basketball stations, 4 headbands stations, 1 dice station, and 1 bowling station. Next year I will be sure to have more ping toss game boards because that game was a class favorite.

This classroom transformation was so much fun! The students were so engaged and it was a great way to review for our place value test which we took the next day. I love doing a classroom transformation to get students engaged and excited. I know transformations are not for everyone and that is okay. We all have different passions. If you have been on the fence about doing a classroom transformation I would highly consider trying one. It doesn’t even have to be Glow Games. I hope that this blog post will help at least one person. Thanks for reading my first blog post. More educational adventures to come!

If you have any questions about Glow Games please feel free to reach out via email, or on my Instagram page @edventuresofateacher.