How to Use Fortune Tellers As a Revision Aid.

By making "fortune tellers", students will revise the key vocabulary and facts of a topic of your choice.

Most folk know how to make fortune tellers, and most teachers will have had to confiscate their share over the years - so why not use them in a positive way?

This project is most suitable younger pupils, those with poorer literacy skills, or those who are normally less-motivated in your subject.

Step 1: What You Need.

If your kids know how to make fortune tellers, all you need is some squares of paper, which can be easily made from standard rectangular sheets.

You will also need an idea of what to put in the fortune teller.

I typically select twelve key words from the topic, focusing on words the class find hard to spell, or forget to use correctly.

Step 2: Make the Fortune Teller.

I could tell you how to make one, or I could simple refer you to one of the several existing instructables on the subject.

I'll do the latter:

Some call them fortune tellers, others call them cootie catchers.  Use the Instructable you find easiest - you may want to show one of the video versions to the class, if they lack this traditional skill.

I have, though, included a selection of templates to show how to fill it in, or in case you want to create your own teller with pre-chosen content.

Step 3: Add the Educational Bit.

Traditional fortune tellers are filled with numbers and colours.

This one uses key words to help your class learn their spellings.

Write the twelve words you want the class to use on your board, and tell them to choose four to write on the outside flaps of the fortune teller.

In the next layer, they write the remaining eight words, one to each of the triangles.

The final things to add are questions.

Under each of the inner flaps of the fortune teller, your class needs to write a question and an answer.

These questions can be about the topic in general, or specifically about the word on the flap.

For instance, if the word on the flap was "nucleus", the question might be "What is the function of the nucleus? (control the cell)", or "What chemical is in every nucleus? (DNA)".

The questions should come from the class' own efforts, possibly with reference to their notes or text books, but you may need to provide some exemplars as a model.for what you need to see.

Step 4: Using the Fortune Teller

In the lesson, once the fortune tellers are made, pupils can try them on each other.

This will give faster or more dexterous pupils something to do while their classmates catch up, and will also allow for a session of peer-review, where pupils check the accuracy of each other's spelling, and the correctness of their questions.

Pupils then take the fortune tellers home to use with their families - this will give the pupils practice spelling out the key words, and help include parents in the education of their children.