Bazinga: Another Easy Review Game

We're coming upon the end of the school year, which means finals! I've had this game ever since I've started teaching and it's one of my favorites to use. It can be used for any type of class, not just math. The kids love it because it's not one of those games where the smartest group wins (though they have the best shot). I found this on Pinterest during my first year of teaching, but it didn't link to any instructions, so I kind of made this up based off of what I saw in the picture. I call it Bazinga (I've heard others call it ZAP, but I like Bazinga better).

To make the board, I bought a piece of foam board. I got the pockets from Mardel (they don't sell this particular pocket anymore, but they sell many others that are cute). I hot glued the pockets onto the board and printed out the pocket numbers, discards, and Bazinga onto lime green cardstock. I just hot cut that stuff out and hot glued it on the board also. Once the board is together, then you just create the cards. I have 31 cards, but you can have more or less. I wouldn't go less than 27 so you can have 3 in each pocket. On the cards, I wrote many different things that I thought would make the game interesting. Here are some ideas:

• Add 1 or more points to your score
• Take 1 or more points from your score
• Take points from the winning team's score and add to the losing team's score
• Winning team does 10 second dance
• Losing team does 10 second dance (they HATE these cards...if they don't do the dance, I take all of their points, and all group members must stand up and dance before I start timing)

Of course, the Bazinga card is in the mix. It doubles that team's score, so they are always trying to find the Bazinga card.

So this is how we play...students will get in groups and come up with some group name. I'll write the names on the board so the score is kept up there. They'll pick numbers and whoever is closest gets to go first. I'll write a question on the SMART Board and they get to answer. The other groups must work out the question at the same time. I sometimes give time limits, depending on what we're reviewing. If that group gets the question right, they get a point and get to draw a card and do whatever that card says. If they get it wrong, the question goes to the next group. If they get it right, they get the point and the card. If not, it keeps going until someone gets it right. (If I feel that no one will get it right, I'll go over that question with the class and no one gets the point. This doesn't happen too often.) After the correct answer is given, a new question will go to the next group and continue like that until we either run out of cards or the bell rings.

My students love this game and they get pretty competitive with it. It's another quick review game that I don't have to put much effort into, which is why I love it. I pull out the board and get some questions together from the text or worksheets and we get going. Easy as that! I hope that your students like this game as much as mine do. Happy reviewing!