Snakes and Ladders Review

This is a great way of looking back on an experience and helping participants connect the learning whilst playing a fun and familiar game. During the review, participants roll the dice and move their marker to the appropriate square, once they are on the square they will be asked a reflective question based on their experience during the session. The person who manages to navigate the board and reach the finish first, wins the game.

Equipment Required: Snake and Ladders board game (or any other similar game) and question cards.
Group Size: 6-8 (for groups with more than 8 people, split into smaller sub-groups of 2-3 people).
Total Time: 15-20 minutes

Snakes and Ladders Review Set-Up

• Organise your board and write numbers on each square (if the board is not already numbered).
• Take time to reflect on the session and select several learning points or ideas that you would like to discuss with your group. Note down the discussion points – they can be fun, educational or serious (or maybe all three).
• Write some questions linked to the theme on slips of numbered paper (the same numbers as there are squares on the board). It may also be useful to create some question cards and laminate them prior to the session. You should be aim to prepare around 20-30 questions.

Here are a few example square questions:

• Square 1: Things that I think we did well as a team…
• Square 2: Things that I feel we could improve as a team…
• Square 3: Three ideas I have to make it more for our team…
• Square 4: What surprised you about your team…
• Square 5: Someone who led the team during the challenge…
• Square 6: How well did your team plan for the challenge…
• Square 7: What I feel I contributed to the team…

How to Play

• Each person takes it in turn to roll the dice and move their counter to appropriate square.
• When they land on a square, they look at the number on the board, read what it says and then are provided with a question by the facilitator or teacher.
• They then answer the question. If the participant comes up with an idea or learning point which is relevant to your learning outcomes (identified prior to the session) take some time discuss it further and ask for the rest of the group to provide some input and share their thoughts.
• The person (or sub-group) to reach “finish” first wins the review game.

Helpful Tips

If you’re working with more than eight in a group (most of the time you will). It is a good idea to put group members into pairs or groups of three. They then take it in turn to role the dice and answer the question – this will help keep everyone engaged and improve the level of interaction.

Instead of using a Snakes and Ladders board, why not try creating your own game. All you need is paper, pens, dice and counters. Check out this helpful post from WikiHow: How to Make your Own Board Game

You can also create a basic board in Microsoft Word using the graph feature. Alternatively you can download templates from the internet, just type ‘board game templates .doc’ into google image search and it will give you plenty of options to choose from.

For more information about reviewing including reviewing methods, check out the reviewing section of the website.