SunDeck
SunDeck is a card game designed to encourage fluency in thinking, brainstorming ideas, word/letter associations, and classifying concepts. It can be performed as a whole class, small group, or individual activity at any grade level.
Directions:
You will need to prepare two sets of cards, each the same size but of different colors. On one set, write one letter of the alphabet per card. On the other, write each of the following topics, leaving several cards blank:
- supermarket items
- toys
- TV shows
- fruit
- clothing
- last names
- sold at Wal-Mart
- colors
- vegetables
- footgear
- adjectives
- nouns
- adverbs
- verbs
- measurements
- furniture
- boys' names
- girls' names
- animals
- beverages
- video games
- weather terms
- birds
- costs more than $10
- costs less than $1
- shapes
- cars
- song titles
- flavors
- insects
- body parts
To play, have one child select at random one of each colored card. Announce the letter and topic. Students have three minutes to generate as many items as they can that begin with the given letter and belong to the selected category. At the end of time ask the students to share their responses. The blank cards may be considered a "choice" of topics. I generally select a student at random to choose the topic.
Options:
- Prepare the cards and place them in a learning center. Individual students can use them at a specified time or as an extra activity when their class work has been completed.
- Prepare the cards and present one a day to the whole class. You may designate a specific time during the day as SunDeck time or allow the students to work on the activity throughout the day as a free time activity.
- Award a small prize to the student or small group who has the most items on his/her list.
- Encourage students to create their own SunDeck categories.
- Use a word processing program to create professional looking cards.
- Laminate the cards for durability
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Last updated March 4, 1997