My students love our review games, and one of the most popular games we played this year was the American Revolution game.  Our reading theme for this instructional window was the American Revolution, so I thought of a way to incorporate that theme into a math game.  What resulted was a way for us to potentially “rewrite history” with a battle between all of the sides that had a stake in this “New World”.  In our game, we had the British, the French, the Colonists, the Native Americans, the Enslaved People, and the Freeman’s Bureau (free blacks).  Each student was placed on one of the six sides.  Each side had a Commander/General and a 2nd in Command, which were made up of our weakest and strongest students.  We played this game in my classroom with all of the fourth graders at one time to maximize our instructional  time and encourage the peer tutoring.  This was a game where all students had to have the same thing written on the boards for their teams, and points were awarded for teams that worked well together.  Teams could spend as much time as they needed on each problem because early finishers were given “sneak attack” opportunities, which were additional problems the teachers would give finished teams to work on while the other teams completed the problem.  Teams could earn additional points if they were called on to explain how they arrived at their answer.  This meant that the higher students needed to make sure that the others on their team knew the content and could tell someone else how to do it.  One student, who receives special education services in reading and math, was so thankful for his 2nd in Command (a higher student) because he really showed him how to do the problems!

Select slides from this game are displayed below.