The Play’s The Thing

Description

If you choose to have your students read Shakespeare’s plays Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, or Julius Caesar, you can follow up with this game to reinforce learning, and, perhaps, make some literary points that were not covered previously. The game includes a game board, instruction booklet, and a variety of game cards (for characters, plots, scenes, etc.). Players move around the board, answering questions and collecting and losing cards until they have completed sets. When each set is completed, depending upon which version of the game you choose, the player reads a short scene (dramatically we hope), or—for “serious drama students”—acting it out from memory. Because there are variations, the instructions take some time to figure out. We separate the cards, using only those from one of the plays, unless we have read more than one play and wish to combine them. The variety in play, and the fact that it can actually be three separate games for the three plays, keeps the game interesting for repeated use. As far as educational games go, it is excellent. However, don’t expect this to be a monopoly-type game that they want to play over and over again for years.