Choose Your Move: A Low-Prep Classroom Game That Builds Strategic Thinking
I love games. I learned to play gin rummy with my grandma as soon as I could hold cards (though I didn’t win a game fair and square until I was eight). Ever since, I’ve looked for ways to bring that same kind of joyful challenge into my teaching.
Recently, I came across a classroom game called Just Right, where students match math problems to a specific strategy on a bingo-style board. The goal is for students to talk through how they think, why they chose a strategy, and whether they can explain it to others. It’s a great concept, and it got me thinking... Could there be a lighter, more flexible version? One that works across content areas? One that doesn’t rely on a single correct move?
Enter: Choose Your Move.
What Is Choose Your Move?
Choose Your Move is a strategy-based game where students are given a prompt, problem, or question and asked to choose a strategy or approach they believe works best, and then explain why.
These should be strategies you’ve already introduced and named in class. Whether it's a math approach like compensation, a reading strategy like asking questions, or a writing move like combining sentences, Choose Your Move helps students apply and talk about the tools they’ve already learned.
There’s no one correct answer. Instead, the emphasis is on strategic thinking, reasoning, and communication.
Here’s how it works:
The teacher shares a problem or prompt.
Students decide how they want to approach it.
They explain why their method makes sense and how it works.
The class discusses the variety of strategies, sometimes voting on the most effective, most creative, or clearest explanations.
There are no materials required. No boards. No laminated cards. Just thinking, talking, and learning.
Why It Works: The Research Connection
Metacognitive strategies, thinking about one’s own thinking, are among the most effective ways to improve student learning outcomes (Hattie, 2009). By asking students not just to solve, but to justify their approach, Choose Your Move invites students to engage in higher-order thinking aligned with Bloom’s Taxonomy and Webb’s Depth of Knowledge.
It also mirrors the idea of “productive struggle,” that sweet spot where students wrestle with ideas just enough to construct understanding. And when students hear peers explain diverse strategies, it builds conceptual flexibility and vocabulary in ways that direct instruction often cannot.
Practical Examples Across Disciplines
The beauty of Choose Your Move is that it works in nearly any subject area:
Math
Prompt: “What’s the best way to solve 49 × 25?”
Possible student moves:
Break 25 into 20 + 5 (Distributive Property)
Multiply 50 × 25 and subtract 25 (Compensation)
Use the standard algorithm or an area model
English Language Arts
Prompt: Fix and improve: “The dog barked. It was loud.”
Possible student moves:
Combine sentences: “The dog barked loudly.”
Use more vivid verbs: “The dog let out a booming bark.”
Add detail/context: “The dog barked loudly when it saw a squirrel.”
Social Studies
Prompt: “Why did colonists seek independence?”
Possible student moves:
Talk about unfair taxes (Cause & Effect)
Compare to modern protests (Compare & Contrast)
Use evidence from primary sources
Science
Prompt: “Why do penguins huddle together?”
Possible student moves:
Explain with adaptation
Describe energy conservation
Use ecosystem behavior
Implementing It Tomorrow
You can launch Choose Your Move tomorrow as a:
Warm-up: Pose one question and do a strategy share.
Exit ticket: Which strategy did you use today, and why?
Group discussion: Each team shares their “move” and reasoning.
To increase engagement:
Let students vote for the “most creative,” “most efficient,” or “best explained” strategy.
Rotate roles: explainer, challenger, note-taker.
Create a class “strategy wall” with favorite moves and when to use them.
Final Thoughts
What makes Choose Your Move so valuable is its balance between student autonomy and academic rigor. It’s a tool that honors multiple ways of thinking while building students’ capacity to explain, justify, and revise their approach. Plus, by framing learning as a collaborative game, it brings the joy and engagement of play into the classroom, making deep thinking feel like a challenge students want to take on.
