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Activities and games

Memo game

A memo game turns pairs into cards: students turn over two at a time and look for the ones that belong together.

When to use it

Use it for anything that comes in pairs: opposites, a word and its translation, a term and its definition, a country and its capital, a picture and its name. To find a pair, students have to keep both halves in mind, which makes the game good practice for links they have already met rather than a way to introduce new ones.

Building the cards

  1. In a worksheet, use the + between two items and choose Memo game. A Game sheet is a natural home for it.

  2. Click the pencil and write the instruction at the top, for example “Find the pairs of opposite words.”

  3. Click Add Card Pair and fill in both cards of the pair, for example “long” and “short”. A card can hold Text or an Image.

  4. Add at least two pairs. Remove Pair deletes one.

  5. Under Game Settings, tick Both sides of cards are identical if students should match two copies of the same card. Show cards initially shows every card face up for a few seconds before play; set the Duration (seconds) beside it. Card Cover Design sets the back of the cards.

  6. Click the tick when you are done. Anything missing, such as an empty card, is listed under Configuration Issues.

What students do

The cards are shuffled and laid face down. Students turn over two at a time: a matching pair stays face up, and two cards that do not belong together turn back over. If you chose Show cards initially, they click Start game and see all the cards for a few seconds first.

Attempts, matches and a score are shown as they play. Before the game is finished, Restart starts it again.

Where to see the results

There is no Submit button: the game is saved as students find pairs, and it counts as correct once every pair is found. Open Results to see, for each student, whether the game is Completed or Incomplete, how many Attempts it took and the order in which they found the pairs. Few attempts means a student remembered where cards were rather than guessing.

Tips

  • Six to eight pairs are plenty. With many more, the game becomes a test of patience.

  • Only the two cards you put in a pair match each other. If “big” could reasonably go with “small” and with “little”, use only one of them.

  • Pictures paired with words work well for younger students and language learners.