Geography State Capital Game (I Have, Who Has)


Title: “I have, Who has?” Game
Grade Level: 4-6
State Standards:
1.      Geography with the sub strand of concepts of location. The standard is identifying and locating major physical and cultural features that played an important role in the history of the United States. Benchmark is having students locate and name all 50 states.
Level of Bloom’s Taxonomy: The students will be using the knowledge category of Bloom’s taxonomy where they can tell, repeat, name, state, know, remember, match, and list state capitals.
Instructions:
You will need 50 note cards, writing one state and capital on each. It must start with “I have ___” and fill in a state capital and right underneath it write “Who has the capital of ____?” filling in the blank with a state name.
To start this game, you will pass out all the note cards to each student (some might have two or three) and then the teacher will pick any state name in the United States and say “Who has the capital of _____?” Whichever student has the card that says the right capital, will then recite what’s on his or her card. This leads to asking someone else the capital of another state. This can be a fun game for review and you can even time how long it takes the class to get all of them. Doing this game is a good way to get students involved and actually have fun while learning.
The teacher will have a copy of all the states and capitals that match just for a cheat sheet to make sure the students are connecting the right capitals to the states called.
Rationale:
Students will be very engaged in this activity because it is a fast pace game that makes them use their memory (knowledge based). Students will learn the name of all the state capitals that go along with a specific state, which is a standard for students to know. Since this activity only uses knowledge, you could tie this activity into a lesson about the history of each state and move into the analysis category having them compare and contrast different states. Since this review game can be used for any subject, for a primary source I included a couple cards using presidents and some famous quotes they have said.
            The teacher will be able to assess this activity by setting a timer to see how quickly students can identify the state capitals. Once they start to get better, their time will improve (having less pauses between cards). The teacher can also be able to pick out the students who are having more difficulty remembering state capitals and can get them extra help. The students will be able to assess themselves by seeing if they know their state capitals, this activity will also motivate children to study/ learn them so they can help their class improve their time record.