Nerf Basket Snow Ball

With hour and a half classes, I've had to use my "out of the box, fun" ideas for "regular" days, the things I try to save for fun review days. I like to keep things interesting and don't like to do the same type of thing over and over again so I did some pinterest research. I found several fun ideas on there for review games. Several of them I could have recreated myself, but wanted something a little different. So, I mashed a few ideas together and came up with Nerf Basket Snow Ball.

I'm not 100% sold on the name yet. When I was explaining it, I told my students the game was going to be crazy. One student said, "is that the name of the game? It's Going to be Crazy?" Maybe we'll go with that...although they didn't get as crazy with it as I expected.

Here's what you do:

Nerf Basket Snow Ball Rules

Split your class into groups (I did groups of 3)

Make your groups into a circle so that there's a big open space in the middle.
(People per group and question number can vary…it’s helpful if they’re divisible)

Create 18 problems on the topic you want to review

Make enough copies of each problem for all groups to have one (8 groups = 8 copies of each question)...I found I didn't really need that many copies. I just feared everyone trying to work on the same problem at the same time. Four or five copies probably would have been plenty.

Print the problems four to a page. I created my problems in a word document, making each problem take up a full page. Then, I set the print settings to print four pages onto one page.

Cut up all of the problems, ball them up, and put them in the middle of the floor.

Everyone should have their own paper…divided into 18 sections (3x3…front and back)

They should number their paper (each square gets a number)

One person from the group chooses a “snow ball” (balled up problem), takes it back to the group, unwraps it WITHOUT ripping, and they solve it together. To keep the chaos down, I stressed the ONE PERSON per group up at a time rule.

Each group solves one problem at a time and everyone has to write the answer on their paper, in the correct square.

When they are finished, they ball the question back up and throw it back into the “snow” pile and choose another problem (for some classes, it might be helpful to have them keep the problems on their desk).

Each problem is numbered so they should make sure they put their answer in the correctly numbered square on their paper…teach this procedure to make it easier to check. 

Once they have solved 6 problems (order doesn’t matter), ONE PERSON from the group brings their paper to the teacher to get it checked.

They get 2 points for each correct answer on the first try. If they are not all correct, send them back to correct what they missed (they’ll have to re-find their snow ball)…teacher discretion if you tell which problem is missed. (I did tell them)

They get 1 point for each correct answer on the second try (make sure to put a mark after the first time you check so you know you’ve already looked at it once...you'll have to be creative if you don't want them to know which ones they missed)

If it's still not correct on the third try, definitely tell them which one is wrong and send them back to fix it. They don't get any points for a correct answer at this point, but must have them all correct before they can shoot.

Once they have gotten 6 right, they get to shoot the nerf ball. This is where the one person up rule is really helpful. They get so excited the whole team wants to come over to the shooting area...that's when it gets crazy. I had to constantly remind them to watch from their seat.

One person from the team gets three shots (no extra shots if missed), which add points to their total. Tape lines on the floor to indicate point lines (1 point, 2 point, and/or 3 point lines) (student trust here…it's hard to check answers and watch them shoot...some classes I made people wait to get theirs checked while I watched shots, but I found even when I wasn't looking, they were honest with their score)

I had them put a place on their paper for their basketball score to make it easier to total at the end and I wrote their basketball score on their paper after they shot so that all points were in my hand writing.

Once they have gotten the first six correct and shot, then they begin working on their next six.

Same process except this time a different person from the team has to bring the paper to be checked and shoot.

Each team member has to shoot. To keep the points easily countable, I had them bring the same paper up to be checked every time. However, at the end they were disqualified if all papers in the group were not completed.

This is not a race…it’s all about points in the end. If the last group gets them all right on the first try and makes all three pointers, they can still win. This encourages accuracy, not speed.

I found 18 problems would have been the perfect number for hour long classes. Eighteen wasn't quite enough for my hour and a half classes. So, after the first game was done, I had each group create a problem similar to the ones they had just done. They wrote their problem 2-3 times each (depending on how slow they were), balled them up, threw them in the snow pile, and we played a quick modified version at the end. 24 probably would have been an ideal number for my classes, maybe even 30 for my really advanced class. 

I was really nervous about it because there are a lot of things going on at once and it can get confusing if students don't listen to the rules. However, my kids did really well and it went a lot smoother than I expected. They seemed to really enjoy it! We'll see how well it did for review when I grade their tests tomorrow!