This is a great game for ESL students, spec ed, or any class that needs to practice sentence building.

It's the end of the year.  Kids are weary.  I decided to try a team-building game that would enhance word skills.  I separated the plastic letters into 5 piles.  I printed common verbs ending in "ing."  I also printed up the following sets of words to help my ESL students:

I am

I was

you are

you were

he is

he was

she is

she was

we were

we are

Sometimes, we have used the plastic letters for speed spelling contests.  This time, students had to build a sentence.  "The best sentence wins, not the fastests."  To ensure thoughtfulness, I chose 4 students to judge the sentences.  If there was a tie, I broke the tie. 

Once teams finished with sentences, the judges decided which was best.  Then, the winning team became the judges.  The first group of judges sat down at the table, and play resumed. This way, teams changed constantly.  The activitiy worked much better than I anticipated.

Higher level thinking was engaged, because students had to think whether their peers would like their sentence.  Judges in evaluating had to decide how to choose the "best" sentence.  In one class, the boys had written "We go to the beach to see fine girls."  One of the female judgest objected, and the guys speedily reworded the sentence.