4. Field Activity: Digital Fabrication for kids

The Color Board Game was inspired by a desire to create an engaging and meaningful learning tool for underserved youth in areas where Spanish is just as widely spoken as English, if not even more so. Because I don’t teach any one subject in particular, I found it challenging refining my idea but ultimately decided on the notion that cultural environment would carry meaning and catered my lesson towards language arts instead. Recognizing that children often learn best through play and repetition, this game combines language learning with an adventure-style experience that makes every turn exciting and educational.

In Miami communities, familiarizing children with foundational Spanish vocabulary alongside English can strengthen bilingual skills and build confidence in navigating both languages. Learning colors in Spanish, a set of basic yet essential vocabulary words, is a natural place to start. The game encourages kids to think, speak, and even create sentences in Spanish, fostering bilingual fluency in a fun environment.

Objective

The goal of the Color Board Game is to reach the “Finish” space by correctly identifying and translating color words in Spanish, practicing pronunciation, and, as players progress, building simple sentences.

Learning Outcomes:

• Students will reinforcing Spanish vocabulary by requiring players to translate and pronounce color words, which are basic yet fundamental to language learning.
• Students will develop bilingual skills, giving students a practical tool they can use outside the game setting.
• Providing students with opportunities to succeed at language tasks helps them feel accomplished and confident in their abilities.
• Students will see their language and heritage represented in a positive, educational setting, which promotes cultural pride.
• Students will share knowledge, support each other, and build social skills in a relaxed and collaborative environment.

Materials:

• Color dice with Spanish words (i.e. rojo, azul, verde).
• Simple board with a start and finish line, with 20-25 spaces in between.
• Player pieces or token for each player.

Setup:

Place all player pieces on the “Start” space. Each player takes turns rolling the color dice.

Rules:

• On their turn, a player rolls the dice and reads aloud the color in Spanish.
• The player then moves their piece forward by 1 space if they correctly identify the color in English (or another language, depending on what they’re learning).
• If the player misidentifies the color, they stay on their current space for that turn.
• For an added challenge, players can earn an extra move by using the color in a sentence (in Spanish).

Winning: The first player to reach the “Finish” space wins!

This game reinforces color vocabulary in Spanish, with the flexibility to introduce more language practice as students progress. Let me know if you’d like more ideas!

Lesson Outline

Introduction (10 minutes)

• Introduce the Lesson’s Objective and explain to students that the activity will focus on learning color names in Spanish and practicing basic language skills through a board game.

• Engage with students by saying each color aloud in Spanish–rojo (red), azul (blue), verde (green), amarillo (yellow), blanco (white), negro (black).

• Ask students if they know any colors in Spanish and which ones they might use in everyday life.

Gameplay (30 minutes)

• Let each student (or team) take turns rolling the dice and moving their token according to the rules. Encourage students to help each other if they struggle with a translation, emphasizing teamwork and learning over competition. Use Challenge Cards for added engagement on special spaces. Teacher Guidance

• Circulate among players to assist with pronunciation, sentence creation, or rule clarification. Encourage students to speak up and use complete sentences for added language practice.

Wrap-Up and Reflection (10 minutes) Discuss the Game Experience

Ask students how they felt about learning and using Spanish in the game. Prompt students to share a new word or sentence they learned. Reinforce Key Vocabulary

Review the color names in Spanish once more as a class, asking students to repeat each one. Encourage students to try using these words outside of class to reinforce their learning.

Gallery

My Reflection

1) How do you think digital fabrication improves the activity vs utilizing traditional methods? What is the extra value? I think digital fabrication adds significant value to educational activities by transforming traditional tools into very interactive and customizable experiences. In my case, I can use 3D printers and laser cutters to tailor my learning aids and lessons plan to match that of the organization I partner with or with the needs of my students. For example, in creating a color-learning dice with Spanish words, I am specifically catering this lesson to the demographic and requirements of South Florida where the population is primarily Hispanic. Similarly, I am also coordinating with various music programs and have created objects (guitar picks, drumstick silent practice tips, and guitar capos) that are better suited for music composition. Also, digital fabrication promotes a hands-on learning environment where students can see how technology is used to make everyday educational tools. This exposure helps introduce students to STEAM concepts.

2) What are some challenges you expect when you do the activity with your class? The biggest challenge I expect might arise during this activity is the language profficiency and disparity level amongst the students might be different and require me to balance the game out. Because they have varying levels of comfort, I need to ensure that all students stay engaged and can follow along while others move ahead. I also think that the limitations of a dice with only six words engraved on it can be too simple and maybe including Challenge Cards could help facilitate an easier flowing game.

3) What have you learnt in the process? Throughout the process of developing this game, I’ve learned a lot about how to make learning accessible and interactive for students with different learning styles. By incorporating a board game into the lesson, I gained understanding of how games promote active learning and make concepts engaging. This may help explain why language apps such as Duolingo has become such a big and prominent tool to help people learn. I also learned the importance of simplicity in design as the clearer and more straightforward the instructions and tools, the more effective the activity will be. Additionally, this project reinforced what we learned about SEL because while this game isn’t necessarily collaborative in team building, it is collaborative in that it highlights healthy competition amongst the students. It also displays the need for cultural relevance in educational materials, as using bilingual tools reflects students’ real-life environments which was my original objective in creating this game. Finally, creating something with both fun and learning goals has reinforced the idea that enjoyable, low-pressure settings can enhance learning retention and encourage participation.

4) Describe the process that you went through to create the teaching aid. What did you learn during the fabrication process? Creating the teaching aid involved quite a bit of brainstorming, designing, and finally, fabricating a color-learning dice using Tinkercad. Initially, I considered the various examples of teaching aids we learned about throughout our classes such as the fraction circles and decimal snake. Our guest speaker also had an affinity for a particular subject. I, however, found it a bit challenging coming up with a specific subject I can cater my teaching aid to but rather than do something similar I thought about what the kids I teach would benefit from. I eventually decided that language skills would be an appropriate fit. I then designed a six-sided dice template with each face featuring a different color name in Spanish, ensuring the text size and style would be easy to read while also not protruding from the dice to influence the roll. I experimented with various designs because I had just learned from our last class that being keen on measurements is essential. While a dice has six perfectly equal sides, the thickness would affect the gluing process and be inconsistent. This taught me that that prototypes often need adjustment and testing different materials/designs would help me refine the final product.