Making Connections

For me, it began with Wordle. Then I found the Spelling Bee. Now, Connections has me snared.

The New York Times games section has become my morning coffee-meets-brain ritual and today, thanks to the awesome folks at the High School ELA Teachers Support Group on Facebook, I was just alerted to an easy way we can make our own Connections game boards to use in the classroom and access an archive of the NYTimes’ game boards.

If you haven’t played Connections, the premise is simple. Sort 16 words into groups of four; each group has its own connection. An easy-ish example:

Want to see the game in action? Here’s a video demo:

The Times’ version of the game can be tough for younger folks (I mean, words made of Roman numerals?), but the Swellgarfo game-making site allows you to create your own age-appropriate puzzles and add curriculum-specific material. No time for that? Another site called PuzzGrid has a repository of archived user-created games that you can sort from “easy” to “fiendish.” PuzzGrid’s a good option to pull up when you need a quick filler brain activity for the last few minutes of class. Of course, you’ll want to preview any games you present to your students. 😉

Note: Connections is quite similar to Only Connect, a popular British TV quiz show, and its debut this summer caused a bit of a kerfuffle. If you’d like to hunt down more resources for your own game-making, you’ll find more materials if you search “Only Connect” than “Connections.”

Need more classroom-tested ready-to-use games/brain activities for your students? Click these links to check out my collections of Brain Teasers, Three of a Kind word puzzles, and Commonly Confused Words bell-ringer materials. 

Puzzle on, teacher friend.