Get work done by playing Homeworkopoly


Thanks to all of our reader suggestions, we are now able to make the Homeworkopoly game board available. Measuring 35 inches square, it’s large enough to use on a bulletin board. If you have suggestions for improving the design or adding to our stack of Chance cards, please email us. Thanks to Teachnet contributors Karen Hull and Ketrina Jordan for their suggestions.

More bulletin board art is located at the Teachnet Classroom Decor page

Download Game Board with street names.
Download Game Board without street names (make up your own for your city)
Download Chance Cards (includes blank cards for making your own)

Homeworkopoly Instructions

Homeworkopoly is a fun way to encourage children to do their homework! Here are some basic instructions, but feel free to use your own judgement and change things around to suit your class needs. We have tried to leave off negative things such as “Go to jail” in order to keep this experience as positive as possible.

In order for a student to play the game, he or she must complete their homework from the night before and hand it in to the teacher. This is how the student moves around the game board. If the student does not have their homework finished, they don’t get their chance to shake the die and move for the day (with exceptions, of course). Throughout the year, day by day you keep the game going. By starting at the beginning of the year everyone gets into it and by the end of the year everyone is doing their homework regularly. Listed below are detailed instructions for Homeworkopoly…

Setup

1. To make game tokens, print off our education clipart, write a student’s name under the picture, then pin on the board. Rolling the die before starting will spread students around the board, if you like.
2. Game pieces may be tacked directly to the board, or outside the board to preserve the playing field.
3. Depending on what version you have chosen to print off the web site, you may need to write in the street names. This can be fun for your students as well. If you choose to laminate the game board pieces you could let the children rename the streets periodically.
4. Using one die will slow their travel around the board.
5. Print the “Chance” and “Community Lunchbox” cards and cut them out. There are extras if you have other ideas to use for them. Just write them in! (If you have business card holders, these would work great for holding the cards up on your bulletin board for easy access.)

Getting Started

1. When a student brings in any homework from the night before, have them go over to the board, roll the die and move. Each student will do this in the morning when their homework is handed in if they have done the assigned homework.
2. The students will continue to do this throughout the year. It never has to end.
3. Deal with special spaces as the students land on them.
4. Having a rotating “Game Show Host” to keep check on the board as students move will make your job easier.

Special Spaces

* MYSTERY PRIZE – When a student lands on this space, they can pick a prize from a pencil box or maybe the teacher could have little grab bags with the mystery prize in them.
* BRAIN BINDERS -Printable, foldable paper puzzles that range from very easy to very challenging.
* GAME SPOT – The game spot is used for playing games from your own classroom.
* FREE HOMEWORK – The student gets a free homework pass for the night when landing on this space. (Usually not a problem with happening too often, if so, check it out. Watch closely when moving around the board.)
* TAKE A SEAT ON THE BUS – When a student lands here, they go to the yellow square diagonally across the board and sit there. When on this square, the teacher can have this student read to the class aloud, do problems on the chalkboard, or pass out milk, for example. These are just a few examples of what the student could do, feel free to use your own ideas.
* GO – When passing go, the student may receive a little prize, such as picking a piece of sugarless gum or little trinket out of the pencil box of goodies, whatever the teacher thinks is an appropriate prize.

Last but not least…Enjoy! This board is made to accommodate your changes. Please send us your comments, questions or suggestions by email.

8 Comments

  1. Instead of making playing piece from clip art use a pictures of each student to make the pieces. This will keep the students from getting confused about what there piece is or the issue were you have 3 students with the same firt name! and its cute:)

  2. I LOVE this! My room has NO wall space though. Would it be possible to get a smaller version of this? I tried to resize it on my own, but I guess it’s protected and won’t let me. Thanks!

  3. I use clothpins with the students’ names on it (written with a permanent sharpie) for children to use as their “pawn” (play piece). It is easy to use if the board is on a table or fixed to the wall!

  4. If you download and open the PDF file in Adobe reader, you can resize it by choosing ‘print multiple pages’. It will reduce it for you by putting more than one page on each sheet when it prints. I had the same problem so I chose 4 pages per sheet and managed to fit it on my teeny tiny wall.

  5. I found a flipchart of the board on Promethean Planet. Considering our local fire marshal is really being a stickler for the amount of wall space we have covered this year, the flipchart is a good option. It is also a good way to handle multiple classes like I have in high school as well as avoid students messing with the markers from another class.

  6. What a great idea! Because neither I have walls, I’ll use it on the floor, kids love that, and the teacher 2!

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