A Jeopardy-Like Review

This coming Monday, we’re going to do a Jeopardy-like review with all 5 of our confirmation classes in preparation for the Confirmation exam they will take the following week. Our emphasis for this will be on “Catholic literacy” – the ability to talk about what you believe in and to be more familiar with Catholic vocabulary. We’re going to impress upon the kids that, in just a few short years, when they go off to college – many leaving the Chicago area – they will find themselves in the minority as Catholics (unlike Evergreen Park and the southside of Chicago which are heavily Catholic) and will need to be able to talk about their faith with others.

We are going to do this review using a Jeopardy-like game that I found online last year at http://ccdgames.com/Jeorpardy.php. This site provides the game in a Powerpoint format so that it can be projected on a screen as a gameboard! I found that it was possible to simply save one of the games as a Powerpoint file and then change the categories, questions, and answers to suit your needs. As a result, I’ve put together 4 “rounds” which you are welcome to use or adapt as needed.

Ten Commandments review game

sacraments review game

Nicene Creed review game

General Catholic Doctrine review game

When you open these and play it as a slide show, the first screen is the game board. When you click on a square the “answer” appears and when you click again, the “question” (solution) appears. Then, you click on the icon in the lower right hand corner of that screen and it takes you back to the game board! Very cool!

You’ll notice in my examples, that I’ve simply named the columns A, B, C, D, and E since they are all on the same topic. I’ve also changed the points (or dollar amounts) to be the same since we are simply going to play by starting on the first square and progressing through to the last one. You can, of course, change this to have it match the format of the TV show if that suits you better.

We’re going to have all 5 classes together, each class as a team. The kids in each class will pair-up and work together as pairs to answer a question when it is their team’s turn. I’m going to work the computer and the other 4 catechists will rotate for each round, one being the host/MC, another keeping time (10 seconds to answer before a buzzer is sounded!), one to keep score on the chalkboard to the side of the screen (game board) and one to walk about keeping order and indicating whose turn it is.

We’ve never done this before so it should be interesting. Hopefully this will not become a circus but I think the looming exam is enough leverage to keep them honest!

P.S. If time permits, we”ll also play a final round like “Final Jeopardy” – I’ve even found the melody that the game show uses for this round! You can download it from ITunes for 99 cents (search for “Jeopardy Theme” and choose the 30-second version)

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