Power Teaching’s Mind Soccer copyright 2009, Chris Biffle 2

Power Teaching’s Mind Soccer

A K-12 Review Anything Game!

Chris Biffle
Chairperson, Philosophy and Religious Studies
Crafton Hills College
Yucaipa, CA
92399
CBiffle@AOL.com

Copyright notice
This booklet may be reproduced for the use by individual
instructors. However, no part of this booklet may be sold or
offered for sale without the written permission of the author.
 Power Teaching’s Mind Soccer copyright 2009, Chris Biffle 3

Acknowledgement
Power Teaching’s Mind Soccer is the work of many
educators. The core idea for the game comes from Fred Jones,
one of the founders of classroom management research and
theory. Additional features of Power Teaching’s Mind Soccer
were suggested after testing by a team of marvelous Power
Teachers: Jackie Pedersen, Angela Macias, Sara Reeves, Chris
Rekstad, Jay Vanderfin, Jeff Battle. My thanks to the all.

For additional information contact

Chris Biffle
Power Teachers of America
Crafton Hills College
Yucaipa, California
92399

CBiffle@AOL.com
 Power Teaching’s Mind Soccer copyright 2009, Chris Biffle 4

Contents

Introduction 5
How To Play Mind Soccer 9
Mind Soccer Signs 18
 Power Teaching’s Mind Soccer copyright 2009, Chris Biffle 5

Introduction

Since 1999, over 5,000 K-12 educators representing well

over a quarter of a million students have attended free Power

Teaching conferences. Educators have downloaded tens of

thousands of pages of free teaching materials from Power

Teaching websites. Our videos on YouTube and Teachertube

receive over 1,500 hits per day. Power Teaching is one of the

fastest growing education reform movements in the United

States.

If you are unfamiliar with Power Teaching, please explore

the following resources.

1. For a very simple, hands on guide, begin with our

newest videos “Intro to Power Teaching Lessons 1-8.” Then

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explore the in-class videos, starting with the ones that have the

most views!

www.youtube.com/chrisbiffle

or at

http://www.teachertube.com/uprofile.php?UID=32259

2. Next read the introduction to Power Teaching articles on a

website set up by Jeff Battle in North Carolina

classroompower.com

Pay special attention to Jeff’s description of the “Big Six”

3. For answers to Power Teaching questions, post messages on

our forum involving hundreds of K-12 Power Teachers from

across the United States:

http://forums.atozteacherstuff.com/forumdisplay.php?f=114
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4. 100’s of pages of free downloads describing Power

Teaching’s classroom management, reading and math strategies

are available at:

http://homepage.mac.com/chrisbiffle/Menu38.html

5. You can see Jeff Battle, one of our middle school

specialists, in a segment presented on ABC television

http://www.wlos.com/shared/newsroom/learning/wlos_vid_204.

shtml

(wait a few seconds for the video to load)

6. More about our organization can be found at:

www.powerteachers.org

7. A model Power Teacher training site is available at

http://www.quia.com/pages/hemet.html:
 Power Teaching’s Mind Soccer copyright 2009, Chris Biffle 8

8. A wealth of material on Power Teaching is also available on

the Internet. Google “Power Teaching” (in quotes!)

In this booklet you’ll find a description of Mind Soccer, a

hilarious new in-class K-12 game, inspired by Fred Jones, a

noted classroom management expert, but souped up with

special Power Teaching features. You can use Mind Soccer to

review any course material at any level, Your students will

love the game so intensely, that you can use it as a reward for

good behavior, especially as associated with our Scoreboard

(see resources above.)

Let me make this point again. Your class will love Mind

Soccer so passionately, madly, intensely, that they will work

extremely hard simply to earn the right to ... review course

material!.

Please go get a large hanky and weep tears of joy.

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How To Play Mind Soccer

Purpose: Like soccer, Mind Soccer is played between two

teams. The purpose of the game is to score goals. Goals are

scored by quickly answering questions posed by the referee.

Rules: There is only one rule in Mind Soccer. Keep The

Referee Happy. You’re the Referee.

Equipment: A blackboard, an eraser and a set of at least 40

short answer, often one word, review questions that you have

created. You will be reading questions from this list.

The Set Up: Draw a horizontal line, about six feet long, near

the bottom of your blackboard. Mark off the line in 11

equidistant vertical marks. The horizontal line stands for a

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soccer field; each end of the line is a soccer goal; the vertical

marks divide the field into units (like a football field). Place an

eraser under the vertical mark in the middle of the field. The

eraser is the soccer ball.

Time Keeping: Play the Mind Soccer near the end of class.

Make all homework and other announcements before you start

play. Then, the instant the bell rings, the game is over. This

will frequently result in breathless, heart stopping games.

How To Play

1. Divide the class into two teams. We’ll use boys against girls,

but it could be right side of the class against left side, etc.

2. Each team chooses the other team’s captain (this is usually

quicker than having each team choose its own captain.)

3. To start the game, the captains stand face to face at the front
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of the room. You pose one of your review questions and, just as

in “Family Feud”, the captains slap their hands down on a desk

as quickly as possible if they know the answer. The captain

who is quickest, gets the chance to answer. If the captain is

right, his/her team gets the ball. Otherwise, the opposing team’s

captain gets the ball.

4. Assume the girls’ team wins control. Picking one player at a

time, ask review questions to the girls’ team. If the player’s

answer is correct, loud, fast and with an energetic gesture, that

counts as a “strong kick.” Advance the ball, the eraser, almost a

full hash mark down the field toward the boys’ goal. If the

answer is correct but too quiet or slow or doesn’t have an

energetic gesture, that is a “weak kick.” Advance the ball a

short distance toward the boys’ goal. If the girls’ answer is

wrong, shout “Turnover!” and now the boys’ team gets a

chance to play. If you like a rowdy classroom, encourage teams

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to cheer when the ball is going their direction and groan when it

isn’t. Thus, every time the ball moves, you’ll have cheering and

groaning.

5. Add any of the following rules to increase excitement:

Steal! Whenever you, the Referee, want to reverse the direction

of the game, shout “Steal!” This means the other team has

suddenly gotten control of the ball. Of course, you will shout

“Steal!” whenever you want to generate an intense amount of

excitement ... like when one team is very close to the goal and

just about to score.

Foul! Whenever one team or the other misbehaves in the

slightest, complains about the ref’s call, anything, you shout

“Foul!” As the Ref, you then have three choices. You can
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award control of the ball to the opposing team; you can move

the ball up or down the field, penalizing one team or the other;

or, most exciting, you can declare a Penalty Kick. (Encourage

teams to cheer or groan as appropriate.)

Penalty Kick! Move the ball to the first hash mark in front of

the opposition’s goal. The attacking team chooses a kicker,

usually the team captain. The defending team chooses a goalie,

usually the team captain. Goalie and kicker face off in front of

the room, like the initial kickoff. You state a question; the

player who slaps a hand down first gets first try at the question.

If the goalie is first and correct, the penalty kick is blocked. If

the goalie is wrong, the penalty kick scores. If the captain is

first and correct, the penalty kick scores. If the captain is first

and wrong, the penalty kick is blocked. If a goal is scored, the

scoring team shouts “Gooooooaaaaalll!!!” like Andres Cantor,

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the famous Mexican announcer.

Free Ball!: Often in soccer, neither team is in control of the

ball. When you shout “Free Ball!”, you introduce an especially

powerful and exciting learning opportunity. Pick a very general

area that your class has studied, for example “Science” or “the

last three novels we read.” Tell the teams the topic, for

example, “Science” and say, “I am thinking of a word that we

covered. What is it?” Students on both teams shout words at

you ... thus reviewing a huge study area! When a student says

the word you’re thinking, his or her team gets control of the

ball. Say, “You won the Free Ball!” Then start giving

questions to individual players on the winning team.

Shoot out!!: When you have extra class time and want to

create a hyper-intense game, let a game end in a tie and declare

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a shoot out. Let each team select five players and a goalie.

Then, the goalie from one team stands in the front of the room

and faces, in turn, one of the five members from the other team.

Just as in the kick off and the penalty kick, you pose questions.

The player who slaps a hand down first gets first try at the

question. If the goalie is first and correct, the kick is blocked. If

the goalie is wrong, the kick scores. If the opposing team

member is first and correct, the kick scores. If the opposing

team member is first and wrong, the penalty kick is blocked.

Each team gets five tries. High score wins. And, of course,

whenever a goal is scored, the scoring team shouts

“Gooooooaaaaalll!!!”

Your strategy: First of all, understand that the game is fixed.

With your clever use of the rules you can move the ball up and

down the field whenever and wherever you want; by selecting

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your questions carefully, you completely determine the action

and final score. Make the game as exciting as you wish by

shouting Steal!, Penalty Kick!, Free Ball! Rarely let one team

get more than one goal ahead of the other. Many soccer games

end in ties. In the case of a tie, use the Shoot Out (described

below) to add extra excitement. Give the weakest players

easier questions; stronger players get harder questions. If, like

many Power Teachers, you believe in the importance of

physical gestures that enhance learning, award answers that

have a particularly appropriate, descriptive gesture a “very

strong kick.” Use your cunning skills as referee to make Mind

Soccer hysterically exciting for both teams.

Secondly, you will need an enormous number of review

questions to play Mind Soccer; thus, it is important to have a

list so you can keep the game moving along quickly. Use any

question, addition, subtraction, division, multiplication, state

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capitals, key concepts from social studies, history, science,

names of characters in stories, anything. But remember:

employ the rules cleverly to keep the ball moving up and down

the field.

Play for only a minute or two every few days. Make your

class work hard to earn the right to play Mind Soccer. If you

use our game infrequently and briefly, Mind Soccer will be a

tremendous motivator for positive in-class behavior.

Think about that. Your class is working as hard as possible

to earn the right to review course material! That, as we say in

Power Teaching, is Teacher Heaven.

In the following appendix, you’ll find soccer signs created

by middle school instructor Jackie Pedersen. Post the signs in

front of your room, to keep your students focused on their goal

of winning the opportunity to play Mind Soccer.

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Mind Soccer Signs

Chris Biffle

Jackie Pedersen
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