Stinky Feet: The Review Game You Can Play Today with Little Prep

Stinky feet? Don’t worry, there are no stinky socks or gym shoes required. In fact, very little is needed to throw a game of stinky feet together. Could you require more prep? Sure. In fact, I usually do some set up beforehand. Although I’ll let you know how to prep materials once so you can reuse them year after year. But at the very minimum, very little materials and prep are required to throw together a great review game. And it works great with all types of content. So join me as I let you know how to play, how to prep for the game, and as I give you some tips and tricks along the way. Are you ready for a game of Stinky Feet? I bet your students are…

Stinky Feet: The Basics.

At its simplest, stinky feet is a review game that requires little supplies and can be put together in a short period of time. You draw a foot on your board. Hint: project the outline of a foot and trace it with a dry erase marker.
Then you need the points. If you’re doing this for the first time, or need to throw this review game together last minute, grab a stack of post-its. Write point values on the back of the post-its (I recommend pencil so they can’t be seen through the paper), and stick them to the board.
Where does the stinky feet part come in? Some of the point values are positive (+5 points, +15 points, etc.)…but some of them are negative (-7 points, -23 points). So the students never know what they’re going to get when they pull a post-it off the board.

Stinky Feet: The Rules.

Put students in teams of 3-4. The teams answer questions, and if they answer correctly, they go to the board and grab a post-it. They cannot look at the point value, so whichever post-it they pick is the one they have to stick with. Personally, I have teams take it back to their table and keep all of them until the end of the game so that they can get a point total. The team with the highest positive point value will be the winning team.

There are a variety of ways you could have teams answer questions.

The lowest prep option is that you simply ask a question out loud. You could have teams go one at a time, which means only one team has the option to answer the question. To keep all teams engaged, tell the other teams they can steal if the first team gets the answer incorrect. The team currently playing will tell you your answer, and if it is correct, they pick a post-it from the board. If they get it incorrect, the next team can steal. Continue play until you run out of questions or you run out of post-its.
A variation of the above that is also low-prep is that you ask a question out loud to the whole class. Each team can have a whiteboard, and all teams can write their answer on their boards. If the team writes the correct answer, they get to go get a post-it. All teams could potentially get a post-it when played this way. To get all students engaged, each kid can have a whiteboard. You can ask all students to write their answer, and tell them you will only check once all teammates are in agreement. Since you are asking questions on the fly, there is very little prep involved in this method of play either. I have used this method, and my students loved it!
You can give each team task cards. This, of course, is going to require more prep time. At least initially. Once they are made, you can laminate them and use them year after year. Or if you have a set of task cards you use in another structure, pull them out for this review game as well! Task cards are meant to be multi-purpose. With task cards, you can play one of two ways. Each team can start with just one task card. When they are ready, they can report their answer to you. If it’s correct, they grab their post-it, turn in the task card, and then grab a new task card to continue play. The other option is to give each team a stack of task cards. They answer one card at a time, and once they have finished with a card and grabbed their post-it (assuming they were correct), they simply put that card to the side and pick up a new one from the stack. I have played both ways, and both have worked just fine.

Stinky Feet Review Game with Points on Post-Its — Stinky Feet: Supplies.

If you love stinky feet as much as I, and my students do, you might want to make some reusable supplies. Using post-it after post-it can get wasteful.
I got some cardstock and cut them down to about 2x3 inches. I recommend a darker color so it’s harder to see through the paper. I then wrote point values on one side of the cards. After that, I laminated the cards for durability. Finally, I got some magnetic tape and adhered a piece of magnet to the back of the card (the same side I wrote the point value on). And now you have re-usable point cards for any time you want to whip out a game of stinky feet.
Pin this image to revisit it later!

That’s all it takes! It’s easy to set-up, and a game your students will want to playtime and time again. Let me know if you’ve used Stinky Feet before, and if you have any tips and tricks I didn’t mention. Connect with me on Instagram I’d love to see Stinky Feet in action in your classroom!