Dinosaurs and Humans

Materials: a white/black board, four or five pictures of people (like stick people), three or four pictures of dinosaurs, tape, dice

Descriptions: To set up, draw a grid on the board - the smaller the grid, the quicker the game, but shoot for about 6×6 or 7×7. Attach tape to the backs of the people and dinosaurs pictures. There should be more people than dinosaurs. Place the pictures randomly in the grid.

Divide the class into two teams - Dinosaurs and Humans. The dinosaurs want to eat the humans. The humans want to run away from the dinosaurs. Then, if necessary, review directions, such as up, down, left and right. Explain that each team can move one of their pieces during each turn, but they have to answer a question correctly first. For younger classes, the question might be saying a word that starts with a certain letter - with older classes, maybe conjugating a verb correctly. Whatever works for your class.

Here’s how the game works. Humans go first, and they answer their question. They can pick one human picture to move, and roll a die to see how many spaces on the grid they can move it. (It doesn’t have to be “three spaces left,” it can be “two up and one right” as long as the math adds up!) After their turn, the dinosaurs move (if they answer correctly). If they land a dinosaur on a human, the human is eaten and is removed from the board.

Once you have an even number of dinos and humans on the board, the humans fight back, and they can start to eat the dinos. I’ve also added a special twist in some classes by adding a “Super Teacher Dinosaur,” that can eat whatever it wants, but can only be eaten by both a dinosaur and a person (hooray for teamwork!). And the kids get to ask me a question, which they love.

-Abeth S.