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Jenga Relationship-Building Questions and Sentence Frames
Audience
K-12 teachers, counselors
Topic
Social Emotional Learning, Oral Language Development
Resource Type
Guide
Format
PDF
Pages
1
Description
Using a game, such as Jenga, can help create a sense of community, while also affirming MLs’ ways of communicating. Playing Jenga, especially when coupled with icebreaker questions, is a fun, low-stress way for students to interact and learn more about each other.
Considerations
Keep in mind that MLs enroll in school throughout the year and you can use this game as a relationship building activity to intentionally include and welcome MLs into the classroom environment. The questions used for the game can easily be adapted or updated.
Use translated, culturally relevant questions and sentence stems for MLs who are literate in their home language, and encourage students to respond in their home language if that is most comfortable for them.
For students that are not comfortable responding orally, provide a whiteboard or tablet and encourage them to respond in writing. Use caution when developing questions for this activity to avoid triggering students who have or are experiencing trauma (e.g., questions about family for a student who has been separated from their family or has experienced a death in the family).
How It Works
Step 1: Set up the Jenga tower with numbered blocks.
Step 2: Provide students with a numbered list of questions.
Step 3: Players take turns pulling a block from the tower and asking the group the question that corresponds to the number on the pulled block. All group members are encouraged to respond to the question.
Step 4: Play continues until the tower topples.
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