Thunk Jenga

The Idea

Another 'new' idea struck me recently: not necessarily completely original but a new take on an existing idea. I had seen the idea of Jenga being used within a class for a revision aid here, but the idea of it being a differentiated resource of philosophical and deep questions does not seem to currently exist.

How I did it

So the idea began to take form...I went online and ordered a cheap, imitation Jenga kit for around £5, which arrived promptly and then began to decide how to structure my idea. 

Initially I aimed to purely have questions written in 3 colours; one for easy, one for medium, one for hard with the idea that students would pick one at random and have a go (the colours would then aid my AFL), however, it soon became apparent that there was a better way to structure the 'game'. I retained the idea of three colours, but decided that colouring the ends of the blocks in the correct colour would allow students to self differentiate when playing the game. It also adds a new level of competition to the game as not only are you looking for an 'easy' block to dislodge, you are also looking for one of the correct colour for what you feel is your 'level'.

Wild card questions

In addition to this, I came up with the idea of having a wild card colour that covered a whole range of difficulties and subjects. This served two main purposes: firstly, if students were not sure on their level, they could use the wild card bricks to gauge their current level. As the bricks are a mix of levels, they can keep picking until they reach one they can't do and ask it's level. Secondly, if a student felt like a change they could select a wild card and gain any of the levels.

So there is the finished idea, a set of colour coded Jenga blocks that are differentiated and easy to use by the students, plus they look lovely and colourful!

Here's the finished product:

I'm looking forward to using it in class!

The Result

I finally got around to using the Thunk Jenga with year 8 today. The class are normally one of those happy medium classes: no real discipline issues but they like to get by on the bare minimum, getting them to stretch their brains and think of their own opinions can be a challenge. 

We had spent the lesson creating sedar plates on paper plates and then looking at Rites of Passage of Judaism, I stopped them 20 minutes before the end of the lesson and told them we had another activity. Interest was peaked when I moved one of the tables to the middle of the room and tried to get it level (we have the old victorian style opening, slanted desks).

I then brought out the bag. I explained that we were going to play Jenga with a twist and again interest peaked; the room went silent whilst I explained the different colours. I then started to set up.

While I set up activity began around the room; I could hear students sizing each other up: who would go for the hardest questions?

We started with the quietest student. He picked his block (carefully) and read out the question. Answering it and automatically giving a reason why. The other students followed. The entire room was silent apart from the person reading the question; the whole class wanted to know what was written on the mysterious blocks. It was incredible, I have never seen a class so involved in philosophical questions before! Even the low ability students were answering questions with great thought and technique and the lesson overran into lunch by 5 minutes because no one wanted to stop playing!

All in all a great success and I can't wait to try it out with other students this week.

Let me know how it goes if you play it in your classes at all.