100 Classroom Activities & Games – Part 3

41. Title: How many Can you name?

Type: Paper Activity

Target: Any vocabulary

Materials: Paper and pencil

Procedure: This is basically a pop quiz, but challenge the students to close their books and make a list of all the vocabulary they know on a certain topic. Some students really get into it and challenge themselves especially if there is some sort of competition.

Title: Last Man Standing

Type: Game

Target: Any conversation

Materials: None

Procedure: Ask one row of students to stand up. The others remain seated. Ask “What do you want to do?” to all standing students and they should raise their hand to answer. Choose the first student to raise their hand to give an answer. If they are correct they can sit down. Keep going (asking students the question and calling on the first to raise their hand) until there is only one student left standing up. Now the column that the standing kid belongs to stands up. Repeat by alternating between rows of kids (sideways) and columns (back to front).

Comments: This is a good game. Don’t explain all the rules at the beginning, just play it at the kids will get it as you go along. It is a real incentive to answer questions and not sit silently doing nothing!!

43. Title: Line by Line

Type: Game

Target: Any vocabulary

Materials: None

Procedure: Divide the class into teams. Draw a picture of the vocabulary words slowly, one line at a time. Teams guess what I am drawing and the first team to get it right gets one point

Comments:

44. Title: Line Quiz

Type: Game

Target: Any vocabulary, or conversation pattern

Materials: flashcards

Procedure: 2 teams stand in a line and I ask the front 2 people a question such as “What do you want?” Show them a picture card and the first to answer ‘I want ____” correctly sits down. Repeat again through the whole line. The first team to all sit down is the winner

45. Title: MASH

Type: Paper activity

Target: House Vocabulary

Materials: Flashcards

Procedure: Now we are going to play one of my favorite games when I was a kid. It is a fortune game. It is called MASH and each letter stands for something. M=Mansion (a very big, huge house like a castle), A=apartment, S=shack (very small, not a good house), H=(Normal House). This game tells you what kind of house you will live in, in the future. Then we have some other categories, like what kind of rooms you can have in your house. We will use 3 categories: Bathroom, Living Room and Bedroom. You choose 3 different options for each category which should be the number of those rooms in your house. (For example: 3 bedrooms, 0 bedrooms, 1 bedroom). Then one person makes small marks on a paper until the other person says stop. The number of marks equals the magic number. Then you count through all the options until you get to the magic number and then you cross that option off. Keep going until only one option in each category is left. Then you will have your fortune.

(Show an example) Okay everybody find out your future house fortune! Now please tell me what kind of house you will have. (students should say I will live in a mansion with 3 bedrooms, 0 bathrooms, and 2 living rooms)

Comments: The initials and content of the game could be used to meet the requirements of other limited topics such as jobs or countries and cities (i.e. what will you be when you grow up, or where will you live, etc.)

• Title: Picasso

Type: Game

Target: Any vocabulary

Materials: None

Procedure: Divide students into teams. The first student from each team comes to the board and the teacher tells them a word in secret. On the count of 3, each students tries to draw the word as fast as they can. The first team to guess their drawers word gets a point. The most points wins.

Comments:

50. Title: Pictionary

Type: Game

Target: Any vocabulary

Materials: None

Procedure: Students are divided into 2 teams. One person from one team comes up to the front where the teacher gives them a vocabulary word to draw on the board. The team tries to guess the word. If they get it correct the team gets one point. Teams alternate turns and the team with the most points wins.

Comments: If the words are easy to guess you can make it harder by limiting the time to draw, limiting the time the students have to guess, limiting the number of guesses and having the team say the answer together in unison.

51. Title: Red Light, Green Light

Type: Active Game

Target: Colours, Traffic

Materials: Flashcards

Procedure: Students start at back of room and when I show green card they yell green light and run toward the front. When I show the red card they yell red light and they freeze. If any student moves during a red light, they go back to the start. The first student to the front gets to be the leader.

Comments: Perhaps could be altered to focus on other vocabulary as well.

52. Title: Relay Race

Type: Active Game

Target: Any vocabulary

Materials: flashcards

Procedure: Divide the class into 2 teams and have each team form a line. The 1st person from each team runs up to me. They look at the card and then tell me the word. Once they correctly name he card, they run back to their team and tag the next person who comes up to me and repeats the process. The first team to finish is the winner.

Comments:

53. Title: Round the World

Type: Active Game

Target: Any conversation

Materials: picture cards

Procedure: Divide the class into groups of about 5-6 Each group will have on leader. The leader keeps the picture cards. Then the first person out of the 5 players stands up behind the person next to them. The whole team asks the target question. Then the leader flips over a picture card and the first person out of the two who are one behind each other to answer what the card says is the winner. The winner stands up behind the next person and starts again. The first person back to their original seat is the main winner and they become the leader for the next round.

Comments: Could also be played as a whole class game rather than in groups

54. Title: SLAM game

Type: Active Game

Target: Any Vocabulary

Materials: Flashcards

Procedure: Let’s review the words. What room is this? (show the room picture cards) Okay now we are going to play a game using these words. There are 2 teams. The teams should line up on opposite sides of the room. I will put these cards around the edges of the tables. The first person from each team should go around and SLAM the picture and then say “This is a _________ (whatever room)” They keep going until they meet in the middle somewhere. When they meet they play Rock Scissors Paper. The winner keeps slamming and saying sentences. The loser goes to the back of the line and the next person from their team starts slamming and saying sentences. When one person gets all the way around the tables, their team gets a point. The first team to get 3-5 points is the winner.

Comments:

55. Title: Snowball fight

Type: Active Game

Target: Any vocabulary or conversation

Materials: Pictures printed on paper

Procedure: Divide students into 2 teams and make a line which the teams cannot cross. Give each student a piece of paper with a picture on it. They crumple up the paper into a snowball and throw them at each other. When you say stop, students must freeze. Count the snowballs on each side and the team which has the most snowballs on their side loses. After the snowball count, students must pick up the paper closest to you, open it and say what it is. Pass out the pictures again and start over.

Comments: Kind of a waste of paper because they are usually extremely crumpled after a few rounds, but fun nonetheless.

56. Title: Sumo

Type: Active Game

Target: Any vocabulary

Materials: flashcards

Procedure: 2 students come up to the front of the class. Pin a card on their back so they can’t see it. Don’t let the other person see either. The 2 students face each other and do the Sumo pose. Put their hands behind their back and readyset- go and then they try to see the other persons’ card without using hands. Once they’ve seen it they yell out the answer. The first to get it right is the winning sumo wrestler.

Comments: This game is very popular with boys, but some girls don’t like to participate. This can be helped if you pair girls with another girl.

57. Title: Teacher Says

Type: Active Game

Target: Any vocabulary

Materials: None

Procedure: Make up actions for different vocabulary words. If your theme is sports then make up actions for “play soccer” “go swimming” “play baseball” etc or if your theme is animals make up actions for “act like a dog” “act like a bunny” “walk like a turtle” etc. Actions can be made for almost any theme. The students stand in a line. The teacher calls out a command like “Teacher says act like a bunny.” All the students follow the command. If the command is not preceded with ‘Teacher says’ the students should not perform the command.

Any students who perform the command when ‘Teacher says’ was not said, is out. The last student standing is the winner.

Comments:

58. Title: Telephone Game

Type: Concentration game

Target: Any vocabulary, pronunciation

Materials: None

Procedure: A vocabulary word is chosen and whispered by the teacher to the first student. They then whisper the word to the next student and so on until it reaches the last student. The last student must say the word aloud and if it is correct the class wins. I usually play class against the teacher. Every time the class gets the word wrong, I get a point. Every time the class gets the word right, they get a point. It’s really motivating for the students and develops class co-operation on a common goal. The first and last students should always alternate to give many students the chance to be the last student.

Comments: Variations can be made to focus on different aspects of the language. For example, instead of just saying the word aloud the last child must write the word on the board which focuses on spelling or writing. Or they must name the first letter of the word which focuses on phonics. Any variation could be made to suit the needs of the class. This game works best with younger students, but variations could make it more interesting for older classes. The game can be mad easier or harder by allowing the students to repeat the word numerous times, or limiting the time a student can say the word to a single time.

59. Title: Tic Tac Toe

Type: Paper activity

Target: Past tense or any vocabulary

Materials: Paper and pencil

Procedure: Students are in pairs and write down plain present tense verbs in each square of a 3 x 3 grid. The first students chooses a square they want to write X or O (depending on what they are). They must conjugate the verb to the past tense and say it out loud. If they get it correct then they can put an X or O over that square. If they get it wrong then it is the other person’s turn. The first student to get 3 in a row is the winner.

Comments: This can be used just to practice any vocab by writing words in the squares and having to say the words aloud, or letters and having them say the name, sound or word that starts with the letter.

60. Title: Tug of War

Type: Game

Target: Any vocabulary, sentence forms, conversation, review

Materials:

Procedure: Divide students into 2 teams. Draw a rope on the board with a certain number of notches. Ask a question and if the team answers correctly they move the marker closer to their side. The first team to get the marker on their side is the winner