Even though it has a fancy title, this one is all about word puzzles.
Analytical Thinking:
- Native Speaker introduces the concept of analytical thinking. 5 minutes.
- Native Speaker introduces Number Puzzles. 5 minutes.
- Students perform Number Puzzles with Native Speaker. 5 minutes.
- Native Speaker introduces Word Grid Puzzles. 5 minutes.
- Students perform Word Grid worksheet. 15 minutes.
- Native Speaker introduces Cryptogram Puzzles. 5 minutes.
- Students perform Cryptogram worksheet. 15 minutes.
Notes:
- The number puzzles are a good puzzle to open the lesson with since they are just converted math problems. They're simple and you can walk through them on the board by asking the students to convert each hint into part of the mathematical equation involving an unknown number.
- I went through two word grid puzzles. In each time I had the students finish the puzzle in groups and (once finished) send somebody up to the board to write the answers. The word grids that I chose from the Game Design website are beginner-level grids and took students an average time of 5 minutes to solve.
- I went through two Cryptogram puzzles. After the Number Puzzles and the Word Grids I made this just a simple race in between groups. The first puzzle was an easy puzzle and they managed to solve it in 5 minutes but the second puzzles was intentionally longer and more difficult since at this point the students were a little bit arrogant about their analytical thinking capabilities. They needed to be brought back down. For each puzzle I prepared hints by revealing vowels but for the second puzzle I ended up giving them a word or two when they were really struggling.
- We just ran out of time after the second cryptogram and only quickly went over first word puzzle. Even though I chose what I think would have been the easiest to explain I don't know how well they would have fared in class.
The Word Grid is based off of GameDesign's
crossword game.
The Cryptogram is from KidZone's
cryptogram generators.
The Word Puzzles came from
Professor Layton & The Curious Village walkthrough, a game form the DS.
More information about my lessons can be found
here.
