Homemade Jeopardy Board

My juniors  sent me home with a homework assignment:  to make a Jeopardy board for their vocabulary review.  I’ve made Jeopardy boards before, so this was no problem.  Well, there was almost a problem.  Even though I wrote it down, I kind of forgot all about it until late Sunday night.  Never wanting to be the teacher who forgets her homework (I do like being a role model), I hustled to get my supplies together.  Here is a list of what I used:

• one poster board
• colored index cards (though plain white would be fine)
• glue dots (or a glue stick)
• double-sided tape
• printed numbers (or you can just write them with a marker)

I decided to print my numbers out, this way they’d all be the same size.  I think I may have a teeny bit of OCD; I like things to be uniform and symmetrical.  I created a two-column table and used the default font, sized 125.  This works out great because it gives you guidelines to cut out the numbers and they’re all the same.

Time to stick the numbers onto the index cards

I used glue dots to stick the numbers onto the index cards, but you could absolutely use a glue stick.  I had these on hand, and I really didn’t want to use Elmer’s glue because of the liquid factor.  This was quick and mess-free.  One glue dot on each corner, center the number, and you’re set.

This is how I like to lay the board out.  I put double-sided tape on three sides of the back of the index card, leaving the top open for the questions.  I stick the bottom row on first to see how much space I’ll have between columns.  Then I stick down the first column so I can evenly space out the rows.  After you do that, you can just match up the edges so that each row and column is evenly spaced.

Final product

Once you’re done sticking the cards down, you’re done.  Even though this is for my kids’ vocabulary review, we can use it for all sorts of things since it’s blank.  In a classroom, a teacher would just have to stick it up on the white board with magnets and then write the categories above the Jeopardy board on the white board.

This could be a great tool to have at home as well.  You can help your kids study for tests, or even have game nights with the family.  Fill the categories with music or sports trivia, or really anything you’d like.  This is an easy and inexpensive way to bring some fun into learning.  Because let’s face it:  anytime we can “hide” learning by doing something fun, we all win.