I’ve finally got my own set! And of course I’ve started scouring the Internet for interesting uses. Martin Sketchley has a lot of ideas that can be used as a starting point (make a story from one cube or nine, review grammar forms, play bingo…). Some of these activities are not what I would normally choose to do in the classroom: first, they can be very time-consuming; second, they are not always directly related to the lesson content (but awfully fun, of course :)).
My favourite suggestion can be found in this post by John Meehan: use the cubes to encourage reflection and deep learning. “Have them explain what they’ve learned from the current unit by creating a series of metaphors in which they successfully incorporate each of the images that they’ve rolled”? This is gold.
Oh, and, by the way, here is an interesting explanation of how the cubes work: our brain feels uncomfortable with unfinished patterns and seeks to complete them. I can’t wait to try them in my own classroom!
Thank you ever so much for linking my post and I’m pleased you finally got your own set of cubes. Enjoy! 😋
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks! I’m planning to get all the sets now, but I need to see if it works for my students first 🙂 I think it’s a bit like parents getting kids toys they really wanted to play with when they were kids!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Story cubes are useful. I posted this one a while back https://eltplanning.com/2016/08/16/using-story-cubes/. A good addition to my teacher toolkit, but haven’t used them as much of late.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, that’s a nice post, and the comments are very valuable too! Thanks for linking to it. I actually tried them out today in an IELTS prep group to revise exam tips and I think this is where the main strength of the cubes is: the pictures are very multidimensional and can encourage lateral thinking, building associations and patterns, i.e. they can be built into many activities without losing the educational content or target language.
LikeLike
Pingback: Teaching paperless 7 of 7 (putting it all together) | Kate's Crate