Teacher notes — Classroom Games
Hangman Ladder: the whiteboard spelling game that climbs from letters to whole words
- No prep beyond picking words in advance. Write your list on a sticky note before class so you're not thinking of words on the spot.
- Keep teams balanced in confidence, not just number. One strong guesser on each side keeps rounds close.
- If a team shouts the whole word out of turn, that's fine, award the point and move on; don't relitigate it.
- The real teaching moment is the sentence after the guess, use the word bank frames so the game doesn't end at spelling.
- For a stronger class: drop the word bank entirely and let students supply their own topic words, then require a two-sentence opinion (claim plus reason) before the point counts.