The end of the year is always a busy time for teachers. I haven’t had the time to write a new Teaching Tip for you this week, so I decided to dig through the archives and repost this one from nearly four years ago. It’s a great game you can play with your class and it would work really well at your year-end class party. 

My students really enjoy Classroom Deal or No Deal. The first time I played it, I didn’t have a Smartboard so I couldn’t use the website or one of the many online resources to play this game. Instead I just used a random number generator, the chalkboard, and a calculator (as a mock phone to the banker.)

After playing Deal or No Deal digitally with my class earlier this year, I must say that I prefer the low-tech way. It really allows me to ham it up.

Here’s how I prepared this game for the classroom.

First, I went to the Deal or No Deal website and copied down all the money amounts. Second, I found a random number generator on the Internet. Then I typed in all the money amounts into the generator and it produced the list you see below. I printed off the list and put it on my clipboard. On one side of the board I put up the chart of the money amounts like you see in the show.

1. 1000
2. 100000
3. 75
4. 400
5. 1
6. 50000
7. 400000
8. 750
9. 200000
10. 10
11. 50
12. 0.1
13. 300
14. 5000
15. 750000
16. 300000
17. 10000
18. 100
19. 25000
20. 5
21. 1000000
22. 75000
23. 500
24. 500000
25. 200
26. 25

I then drew 26 rectangles on the board and labelled them from 1 – 26. I asked the class to pick a suitcase. They picked case number 10. Ironically case ten held ten dollars. I didn’t tell them this, of course. I erased rectangle number 10 from the board and wrote it beside the number chart.

I then wrote the rounds on the board. Round 1 = 6 cases, 2 = 5 cases, 3 = 4 cases, 4 = 3 cases, 5 = 2 cases, 6 = 1 case, and every other round would also be one case to open.

I counted off the first six students by going up each row of desks. This way everyone knew where we would be stopping the first round. One by one I let the students pick a case. I then erased the chosen case from the board and the dollar amount it held from the chart. After we “opened” six cases, I pretended to talk to a banker by using a calculator as a phone. It was hilarious. I really hammed it up.

Each student had a piece of paper on their desk. If anyone liked the deal, all they had to do was write their name on the paper and bring it up to the front. I would then write the dollar amount under their name and stick it on the board. The point of the game was to come out with the most money at the end.

I had some students stop at round 2, 3, and 4, where the offers were $32 000, $64 000, and $99 000. It was exciting for everyone involved. By round 5 all of the big amounts had been knocked off and the offer fell. And just like on the show, I had students play all the way to the end and come away with the ten dollar prize.

The sole winner in the class was the person who took the deal of $99 000. I had three people tie for second place because they took the $64 000 deal and two students tied for third place. I think everyone really enjoyed the afternoon’s game. I know I sure did. I was surprised at how well it actually turned out.

I even gave out prizes for the winners. It was a lot of fun and something I now do with my class every year. Oh, and I forgot to mention, it even teaches probability (but school can just be fun sometimes, can’t it?)