Explore 14 Applications of Ellipses review games designed by a teacher to engage students and reinforce curriculum. When students are having fun, they forget they are reviewing, making games a great way to practice Math.

• GRUDGEBALL combines question review with a battle for survival as teams fire cannons, sink opposing ships, and fight to be the last one afloat.
• Turn review into an unpredictable whole-class competition with The BIG TERRIBLE Game, where every answer can send a team’s score in the right or wrong direction.
• The TERRIBLE Game makes review wonderfully terrible as teams answer questions, uncover unpredictable scores, and use positive and negative points to get closest to zero.
• Keep students on their toes with FRAZZLED, where every answer can reveal points, help the opposing team, or uncover a bomb that resets the score to zero.
• Get students moving with SCOOT, where they travel from desk to desk answering task cards and recording their answers along the way.
• In BUMP, correct answers earn students shots at the platform, where they can score even more points by bumping off opposing teams.
• In TRASHKETBALL™, students compete to answer questions quickly and correctly to earn chances to shoot and score for their team.

A good review game can completely change the energy in the classroom and get students excited to practice what they’ve learned. Once the game starts, students start talking, thinking, and working together, with hands shooting up and everyone waiting to see what happens next. Once students know another game is coming, winning becomes a reason to pay attention, practice, and make sure they’re ready for the next one.

And it isn’t just something I’ve seen in my own classroom—research has found significant learning benefits from using educational games with students. See the research.