Aliens have landed trivia - Staff site

Description

A PowerPoint trivia game where kids will guess letters to reveal the answers to space trivia. Kids must guess the answer before an alien appears on the screen.

Number of participants

For any number of participants

Space Considerations

An indoor space equipped with a laptop, computer mouse and projector

Competencies

Oral communication skills
Social interaction
Vocabulary building

Materials

Laptop
Computer mouse
Projector
Scrap paper and pencils (optional)

Preparation

Test the PowerPoint game before using it for your group.

o Advance the slides by clicking on the arrow labelled “next” in the bottom right of each slide or by using the right arrow key.

o Click on the letters in the circles for each letter guess. If the guess is correct, that letter will appear in a blue box at the top of the slide. If that letter appears multiple times throughout the word, you will not need to reclick the letter; it will appear in multiple blue boxes. If the guess is incorrect, an alien “part” will appear on the screen. It may be something very small, such as a circle or stick shape. Clicking that same letter again will not do anything additional. As mentioned below, the PowerPoint game does not track which letters have already been guessed, so you can have one or more kids volunteer to track on a scrap piece of paper.

o Kids will be tasked with guessing the word before the full alien appears on the screen. We suggest having to guess three correct letters before allowing kids to guess the word, but those rules can be changed. Simply edit the PowerPoint text on the second slide or inform your group.

In the notes section, there is a section called “unused letters.” If kids guess the answer before the full alien image has appeared on the screen, but still want to see the alien, simply click on each letter in the notes section until the full alien is on the screen. Clicking a letter more than once will not produce an additional effect.

Once the word is guessed, you can show the alien by clicking the unused letters as described above. To play again, simply advance to the next slide using the arrow labelled “next” in the bottom right corner of the slide.

Implementation

1. Tell kids that they will be answering some fun space trivia. Set the rules for them, such as whether they will raise their hand to answer, how many correct letters must be guessed before they can guess the word, etc.

2. Elect a volunteer in the group to be a letter tracker—someone to note down what letters have been guessed. This task can be assigned to the entire group if you prefer. All participants may benefit from having a scrap paper and pencil in front of them for tracking and guessing.

Accessibility Considerations

Provide a PDF of the trivia questions for anyone who may have difficulty seeing on screens.
Kids can work together in small teams or pairs to call out suggested letters, then record them on the worksheet provided.
Staff will narrate the position of the letters when they are guessed correctly, for example, “B is our first letter.”
Staff will read or narrate all the information on the slides.
Staff can use a microphone if available.