Words With Friends in the Classroom

My latest online obsession is Words with Friends. I play the game via Facebook but it is also available as an Ipad or Mac app. Just like Scrabble, your goal is to outscore your opponent by using as many letters as possible to spell words, using rare letters and placing letters on top of premium squares to multiply your points.

Players have the option of playing pass-n-play mode, online with a friend in your contact list or a random opponent.

Words With Friends also allows players to chat with one another, which is always a great feature to have in any multi player game. The goal of the game is to score the most points.
The text and the graphic elements provide the users with the learning content. Due to the fact that this is a word based game, the text in the most prominent element. The game board, the main visual/graphic elements, provides the opportunity for strategy in the game. I feel that the scenario design of Words with friends is embedded in curriculum related content.





Words with Friends  lesson

Grade 5

Instructional activities   Vocabulary lists.  Students will be paired up and play a game of Words with friends.Following the completion of the game, the students will copy/paste their boards into an email and distributed to all of the students in the class.    Based on the words used in the games, the students will be required to build a 10 word vocabulary list including definitions and a sentence for each word.  The students may use online resources for their definitions. 

Assessment:  The students will assessed via a rubric with the criteria being the completion of a game, vocabulary words chosen from on of the "Words" boards, definitions and proper use in sentences.

Debriefing can be implemented by directing  the students write a journal reflection about the activity.  What did they like/dislike about the activity.  What have they learned ?

lWThis game cultivates vocabulary building skills, grammar skills (specifically the use of plurals)

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L.5.4. Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grade 5 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.

• Use context (e.g., cause/effect relationships and comparisons in text) as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.
• Use common, grade-appropriate Greek and Latin affixes and roots as clues to the meaning of a word (e.g., photograph, photosynthesis).
• Consult reference materials (e.g., dictionaries, glossaries, thesauruses), both print and digital, to find the pronunciation and determine or clarify the precise meaning of key words and phrases.

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