Turkeys on a Farm, or Road, or Meadow, or Thanksgiving Table

I originally heard about this game on an #alg1chat on Twitter, read about it here from Math Tales from the Spring.  One person called it Ghosts in a Graveyard, and another called it Eggs in a Basket.  It just depends on the season.  

You will need a worksheet with about 5 problems for students to complete.  

Since it's close to Thanksgiving I found some Turkey clipart online and printed them in 3x3 squares, just the perfect size for post-it notes.  

Then I stuck the post-it notes over the Turkeys.

And put the paper through the printer again.

Next, you will need to draw some scenes on the board (or make posters to use more than once).  I used a farm, a road for the turkeys to cross, a meadow, and a Thanksgiving table.  

Give the students the problems to and allow students to work together in their groups to come up with a "perfect" paper.  Once a group is absolutely sure that they are done, check their answers and give them a turkey for each problem they have completely correct.  The students can then place their turkeys in what ever scene they want.  If they want to put all their turkeys in one, that's fine too.  

Once all the groups are finished randomly assign a number from 1 to 5 to each scene.  

For each turkey a group has in a scene, they receive that many points.  The team with the most points wins!!

How did it go?

I felt rushed today because we had an early dismissal with a compressed schedule due to snow.  I wasn't able to encourage students to check their work like I wanted to.  I also wasn't able to go over the answers.  And in one class, only one group finished the problems before the bell rang.  Even with all of this going on, the students were into it.  They liked working together, and some groups were aware of the importance of accuracy.  Now that I have tried the game and know that I like it, I think I will laminate my turkeys and make posters with scenes.  This game is a keeper.