Have a look at a funny video on our different games!!

 

PLEASE CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW 

TO DOWNLOAD THE FULL GUIDE OF THE GAME FOR FREE

 

What is “Tiny Town”?

Tiny Town is a game for our 6^th grade Science students. It is to be played with license cards provided by teachers which must be used to design and develop the mockup of a healthy city.

The purpose of the game is to introduce our 6^th grade students into the new “entrepreneurship skill” through a game that involves all the Units in the area and helps personal development.

How can you play “Tiny Town”?

Getting ready

Tiny Town will be played during our Arts & Crafts and Reading in English lessons, but players need to win and store their playing cards along the whole week before.

In our Arts & Crafts and Reading in English lessons, the class will be divided into 5 teams of 4-5 members each. Students will play weekly rotating roles:

ü      Engineer: he is the one in charge of choosing the best materials to be used in the mockup.

ü      Architect: he is the one in charge of drawing and designing maps and templates before any construction.

ü      Lawyer: he is the one guiding the decision making processes in the team.

ü      Accountant: he is the one storing the cards and other documents of the team.

ü      Community manager: he is the one in charge of the marketing and communication techniques. He should design and publish a blog for the town.

In addition to these jobs, one member of each team will play the part of the major of the town. This honor will rotate amid the members of the team.

For the game to start, each team in the class will be given a place in the whole class’ map, so that it can develop its town there using the cards that the members win.

Playing

The game is divided into two main activities:

1.     Winning license cards.

During the week, players will be able to win cards in many different ways:

o       Passing an exam.

o       Behaving in the class.

o       Fulfilling a tutorial objective.

o       Helping a classmate.

Etc.

Teachers in the 6^th course will reward or punish players by giving them good or bad cards depending on their conduct (achievements and misconducts deserve different cards).

2.     Designing and building a town.

Twice a week, during the Arts & Crafts and Reading in English lessons, the players will join their teams and share the cards each one won during the week before. From that moment on, and through planning and negotiation dynamics, the teams will have to design and build their towns starting from the emplacement: ecosystem, environment and features (Green or Land cards).

Teams will have to bear in mind that each card has and expiring date (from 2 weeks to 1 month), so that once their members win them, they must use them before the card expires!! Otherwise, teams will lose the cards.

How are license cards to be used?

There are different kinds of license cards, since the game goes through some stages:

STAGE 1.

In this very first stage, players have to win Land cards (Green cards). These cards refer to the natural conditions to the city: Ecosystems, Environment and Physical Geography.

Each card leads to 4-5 others of the same family. The team has to win all the cards from a family to pass the first stage and start developing the town.

 STAGE 2.

Only the teams having all the Land cards of a family can join this stage, although they have not finished building the land yet.

In this second stage, players can win:

·         Blue cards (City cards), which refer to facilities and buildings; and

·         Orange cards (Business cards), which refer to economic sectors: agriculture, industry and services.

Apart from these three kinds of cards, there is a fourth one: In both stages players could also be punished with Red cards (Disaster!) due to their eventual bad behavior. Be careful, since those cards do never expire.

In addition to this, from the very first moment and until the end of the game, players could also win Purple cards (Bridge, Tunnel, Airport or Harbor cards) for civic or social tasks that help others. These cards allow the team having them to link their town to the helped one in an alliance or brotherhood that will benefit both towns.

Last but not least, you should never forget that dramatic needs are often inspiration for heroic acts. In this sense, if any player overcame a specially difficult or demanding problem, he would deserve a White Card (Genius Card). This card rewards his owner with any card of his choice.  

What can we do with the cards we do not need?

It may happen that a team won more cards than another one in a week, so that the first one has more chances to develop than the second. That will not be beneficial for the whole city map of the class, since huge difference amid towns is a signal for business failure.

It could also happen that a team won cards that cannot use for its town, simply because the cards do not fit their developing planning (for example, if a player won an “Oasis” Land Card when his team is already working on a Mountain Ecosystem).

To solve these sane problems we will weekly celebrate a trading market during the Reading in English lesson. In such market, teams will need to negotiate card deals among them:

• They can exchange cards through SWAP AGREEMENTS.

• They can give cards on loan to another team through LOAN TRANSACTIONS.

• They can purchase land pieces in return for some cards through CONTRACTS OF SALE.

Of course, teams must always try the best for all the towns, since the final purpose of the game is to reach a sane and efficient city evolving the five towns in the class.

In order for them to be able to join negotiating processess successfully, the teacher will provide each team with some basic Tool-Cards and techniques they will be keen on in short:

Who wins the game?

Within some weeks, the teams are expected to have won enough cards to be able to build their towns. And the towns should be connected so that the whole map works as a city composed of the five towns.

Winning cards and passing stages means STARS for a team and its town:

1 Land card = 1 to 2 stars	1st stage: 5 to 9 stars
1 City card = 2 to 3 stars	2nd and 3rd stages: no limits, up to the capacities of each team
1 Business card = 4 stars
1 Bridge/Tunnel/Harbor/Airport card = 6 stars
1 Disaster! = 1 to 3 black dots

You can win this game as a town and/or as a city.

The town having more stars (and, of course, less black dots) when reaching a deadline, is the one winning the game.

In addition to this, each city is candidate for being voted by the teachers’ staff as the city they would like to live in. Such votation will be held once the game is over and after a presentation of the cities’ candidatures (strenghs reached and oportunities to develop) by its members during a final gala. The city having more votes will deserve to win the game as a city.