Hatchet

I was noticing that I have a lot Language arts things for younger kids and not so much for older. It's a little bit harder to find book related activities and games for 5th and 6th graders because they are generally reading novels by that time. With so many novel options games for each one are not possible. Here's a great book and a game to go with it.

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen.

This is a story about a 13 year old named Brian and he survives for 54 days in

the Canadian wilderness after his plane crashes. I remember reading it a while ago and I really enjoyed it. It's a great survivor story and shows how this 13 year old boy changes and grows through his experiences. It's a story I would encourage my son to read when he's a little older.

I found this great game to help with some of the vocabulary and details from the book. What a great way to review for a test or just to have fun after you have read the book. Challenge your friends.

I am a huge fan of Jeopardy. I think it is a great way to help kids learn and review their facts from whatever subject they are currently studying. I don't however enjoy making up the questions or the board and this can be even more difficult if you are doing it on the computer. Just google it. Why reinvent something someone else has already made it and left it for you to use? Make sure you give them credit when you use their stuff. Many teachers post things on the internet to help oth

er teachers so they don't have to go through the long process of creating it.

Here's the jeopardy game I found to go with Hatchet.

I love the fact that you get to pick how many teams. This program also keeps track of the team points for you after the question is answered. It's not really a game that they could play alone but generally when kids get to 5th and 6th grade they want to do more with their friends.

This is the game board. The biggest problem I see here is that you have to use the pre-made questions and can't change them to your own from a study guide. That is also a benefit because it is done for you and you don't have to spend the time creating it. It just depends on what you want.

I also found that you can create an account and play with other's on-line. Just make sure you are careful and lay down the playing online with others rules before you let them do that.