One of the reasons I first started this website ( almost exactly 8 years ago), was because I thought the web was the best medium to share game ideas. Mainly because animated pictures make it so easy to see how to do things.
Of course from the very beginning people were then asking me to do a printed version to take into the classroom. But boy is that a tough thing to do! I started the first printed book 7 years ago, but I could never get it right. Problems were space ( on the site you can scroll to see more, on printed page you have far less space), illustrations ( the photos I have work great online but not so good in print), content ( it seems like every month something new is added to GE) and design ( just what info do we need on one page?). Plus a few other things like a couple of the early games being educationally very bad ( I’m lucky these days to have so many people reviewing the site that anything that is dubious from an education point of view gets picked up very quickly!).
Anyway last week we started doing using the lesson plans book designed for the Thai Ministry of Education. Professional is certainly the word to describe their implementation.
They’d decided to go with a very simple layout of just the lyrics to the song and the text of the game for each theme. Very simple. And you know what, I think it works! So I’ve knocked up a similar version in English and have put it up on the forum. If you could download it and let me know what you think I can probably get it updated to include all the themes. Plus of course if there are any extra things you’d like to see ( illustrations? feedback / comments boxes?) then feel free to discuss them and let’s work out a book that’s really simple for everyone to use!
Lesson Plans Book ( English) ( CD Owners Club)
I’ve also been given permission to put up the Thai version for anyone to download. Enjoy!
If you’d like a version for the language where you are teaching, get in touch with your Ministry of Education and let’s try and get even more countries on board!
