COVID-Friendly Activities for the Classroom: Cutlery Card Games

These COVID times have forced me to re-configure my games and initiatives classification process. Rather than being organized by theme (leadership, communication, trust, etc.) or element (TP Shuffle, Whale Watch, Multivine etc.), I am now using a system based on the approaches used to address various public health measures (zoned, surface contact, active distancing, etc.). Rebuilding the “activities I use” database in my brain has provided me with an opportunity to think creatively about how I might alter an activity to make it eligible.

Different teachers, schools, and school boards have different policies on whether an item may be touched by a series of students in the course of an activity. Even when touching a shared item is permitted, there is often either a cleaning protocol that creates additional work for the teacher or the item must be placed in quarantine for several days before it may be used again. Option A – don’t do the activity means a whole lot of activities get eliminated. Option B – figure out how a series of student might be able to manipulate an object without touching it directly. Enter what I now call the “cutlery collection”. Participants in these activities use cutlery (plastic, toy, actual) to “handle” the objects. Since hands are eating utensils in some parts of the world (and it is currently winter in Canada), asking participants to put on their insulated mitts or gloves maybe sufficient to address the issue of indirect transmission in some settings.

In this series of activities I am going to focus on using chopsticks. Why chopsticks? Well, I have accumulated a rather large and unused collection in individual paper wrappers in hopes of one day figuring out what to do with them. Now I have. As a bonus, if you don’t have enough chopsticks to give a set to each participant, simply ask students to bring two pens or pencils with them. These activities also require a deck of cards.

Flip & Find (The Possibles Bag by Chris Cavert) is a zoned activity where participants work in smaller groups yet the activity is facilitated centrally. It’s ideal for a classroom or gym. First, create four lanes. At the end of each lane will be the seating zone, then the boundary line, and finally the card location. If students are already sitting in desks that are in rows, you’re pretty close. Only one participant from each group will be moving at a time (although potentially in opposite directions) so designate some travel lanes so people from neighbouring groups don’t bump into each other. Imagine that you are setting up a sledding hill, tell students to only travel in the aisle that is to the right of their desk, or consider this layout.

If students aren’t sitting at desk, use polyspots, tape, or other markings so they know where their seat is. Finally, sort your deck of cards into four suits. There should be 13 cards in each suit going from Ace to King. Mix up the cards from each suit and lay them out face down in the card location about 12” apart. Create four equal sized groups. Now you’re ready to play.

The goal of the activity is to flip over the cards of your group’s suit in order from Ace to King. Team members must remain seated behind their boundary line. On the word “GO” one player from each team may cross the line (with their chopsticks, cutlery, or writing utensils), enter the card location for their suit and flip one card over (using their utensils). If it’s the Ace, they leave it face side up and return to their seat and sit down. If it isn’t, then they flip the card face down and return to their seat and sit down. Once the first participant from the team is seated, the second participant may stand up, move to the card location and choose a card to flip over with their utensils. Participants may not show anyone their card but they may communicate verbally. This activity isn’t a competition between groups but that may happen.

Other card-based activities that may use this same zoned approach include Memory – each group needs two suits (26 cards total) so they can match cards of the same rank. Each player flips two cards before returning to their seat. Matches stay face up, unmatched cards remain face down as well as activities that use Teamwork & Teamplay character cards, Ubuntu Cards, and Chiji Cards.