I love a review game.
I have blogged about bingo (lotería), dominoes, and charades.
Let's talk about Memory.
Why is Memory fantabulous?
So many reasons.
It's easy to make.
You can laminate it (if you make the paper version) and use it year after year.
It's fun and engaging for students.
You can do absolutely nothing while students are engaged in reviewing vocabulary.
I should have opened with that one - my bad. 📣 YOU CAN DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WHILE STUDENTS ARE ENGAGED. I mean like lean back, feet up on desk, sipping coffee.
I don't recommend closing your eyes because you should technically be supervising the students and that doesn't feel like a best practice.
How to Make the Paper Version
1. Open up Powerpoint.
Yes, you can do this in Word too, but Word is a bit of an uncooperative jerk.
2. Format the slide to 8.5" x 11".
Go to File > Page Setup. Make the width 8.5" and the height 11". Click OK.
It'll ask you if you want to scale the content up or down. It doesn't matter because you're going to delete it, so just pick one.
3. Delete the boxes.
We don't want or need the title and subtitle boxes. Delete.
4. Add in margins (that you'll delete later).
We need margins so that we put everything where the printer can actually print. We'll delete these later.
Go to Insert > Shapes > square.
Drag the square to the top left corner.
Go to the Shape Format tab and make the square 0.5" wide and 11" long.
Copy and paste the square (now it's a rectangle) and move it to the right side of the page.
Copy and paste it again, and resize it so it fits the top edge, and then copy and paste it one last time for the bottom edge.
5. Insert a table.
The table will just be an outline for you to cut the images out. You ideally want the images to be about 2" wide.
Go to Insert > Table and choose 4x5.
6. Format the table.
Drag the table so it fills the white of the page, touching all 4 margin boxes.
In the Table Design tab, choose No Fill for the Shading. For the Border dropdown, select All Borders.
For the line thickness, make it 3 or 4.5 point. You could even do 6 point, but IMO that might be too thick. You'll be cutting the images out along the lines, so you want them to be thick so that's easy.
7. Delete the margins.
You don't need 'em anymore.
8. Duplicate this slide.
You're gonna want multiple pages.
If you're on a PC, right-click the slide and choose Duplicate Slide. If you're on a Mac, hold CTRL, click the slide, and choose Duplicate Slide.
9. Insert your clipart!
The step we've all been waiting for.
Copy and paste or drag and drop your clipart into the boxes. One clipart per box.
Size the clipart so they almost completely fill the box without touching the lines.
10. Type the vocab words for each clipart into boxes.
Duplicate the second blank slide if you need more boxes (you almost definitely will).
Type a vocab word for each clipart into each box.
11. You're done! Mostly.
Print, laminate, cut the squares of clipart and vocab out, throw out the margins... THEN YOU'RE DONE!
Teacher Tips for the Paper Version
- Print the Memory games on cardstock so students can't see through the paper.
- Put each set in a small ziplock bag to distribute to students.
- If you keep finding one piece on the floor after students clean up and you don't know which set it belongs to, print the games on 2 different colors of paper. Number the sets and mark down which groups of students get which set, so you don't have to search through every set to figure out which piece the lone piece is from.
Let's talk about the digital version.
I didn't figure out how to make this game digital on my own. Infinitely Teaching is infinitely smarter than me and blogged years ago about how she did it.
Basically, since student's can't physically turn papers over in the digital version, they uncover the images and then re-cover them if the "cards" they pick don't match.
Genius.
Here's how I've made digital Memory games.
1. Create a new Google Slide.
Open Google Drive, click New, and choose Google Slide.
2. Make the slide 4:3.
We want as much space as we can get to work with.
Go to File > Page setup. Choose Standard 4:3 and click Apply.
3. Delete the Title and Subtitle boxes.
Don't need 'em.
4. Figure out how you can arrange the boxes. (Do some math.)
You need to figure out how many clipart images you want to use.
Multiply that number x 2 because you also have to include the vocab words.
30-50 total is the sweet spot.
Ideally, you want each clipart & vocab word in a box that is between 1-1.5" square (or slightly rectangular).
You also want a small space between each box.
Figure out how many boxes you need.
5. Arrange the boxes on your slide so they look nice.
Go to Insert > Shape > Shapes > square.
Make the fill transparent and the outline black.
Click the 3 dots on the far right and choose Format Options.
Choose the Size & Rotation dropdown and make your square into a size that you want. Whatever you think will fit on the slide for as many clipart & vocab words you have.
Recognize your first guess for the square's size will be wrong and you'll have to re-do this step until the total number of boxes on your slide fit and look how you want.
6. Insert the clipart & vocab words.
Arrange the vocab and clipart randomly.
Insert one clipart into each box and size it so it fills the box.
Type the vocab words into the other boxes.
7. Make it so your students can't ruin your hard work.
You can make the slide the background so students can't "accidentally" delete everything and drive you bonkers because you just spent 30 minutes nicely arranging clipart and you never want to do it ever again.
Once all your clipart and vocab words are arranged exactly as you want them, go to File > Download > JPEG (or PNG will also work great).
I like to save this Google Slide as the editable version, and create a new Slide to insert the JPEG background into. Just in case I ever have to edit and I don't want to recreate the wheel. But you do you.
So either create a new Google Slide (Standard 4:3 size) or delete everything on the slide.
Click Background (right next to Layout and below Add-ons). Choose the JPEG image you just downloaded and voila! It'll be set as your background and students can't mess up the game! I mean I'm sure they can in other ways.
8. Cover the images.
Insert a new square. Change the color to something you like. I also add a big ? on each square.
Make the square slightly larger than the squares you have each clipart and vocab word in. If those squares are 1.2", then make this square 1.25". This makes the covering process a bit easier.
Drag the square to cover one of the clipart or vocab squares. Copy and paste it. Cover the next one... repeat until all squares are covered.
9. Make a slide with rules for students.
Students have to delete two boxes to see if the 2 "cards" are a match. If not, they have to undo (ctrl + z) to re-cover the "cards". They take turns until all the cards are uncovered matches. They have to keep track of which matches they found to determine a winner.
You're done!
You can get ready-made Memory games for Thanksgiving vocab, Christmas vocab, Weather vocab, AR verbs, ER verbs & Jugar, Adjectives vocab, Reflexive verbs, Body Parts vocab, Food vocab, and a Spanish 1 Bundle in my TpT store. Both paper and digital versions are included!
Let me know in the comments below if you use Memory games in your classroom!
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