Codebreaker

Many people might remember the game Mastermind. The goal of the game was to identify four coloured pegs before running out of possible clues. I've played this game with my students, and used numbers instead of colours.

With this in mind, I decided to create a game where students had to guess a secret CVC word. I first tried this out with a small group of students. On chart paper, I created the grid and challenged students to guess my secret word. This proved challenging, as some of my kids could not remember that my word did not contain certain vowels, so if I said that they had /o/ correct, but in the wrong place, they would not realize that it belonged in the medial position, and then guess a complete different vowel. Ah, me!

I refined the game in the small group by checking individual letters in their appropriate positions. This helped the group to stay away from random guesses. Since I wanted them to play this game in partners, I created a printable version of the game.

My students certainly enjoyed playing this game. I'm sure yours will, too! I've also created other versions of the game if your students are ready for more complex code. Go to my store in Teachers Pay Teachers for this game with CVCe, consonant clusters and blends.