House dominoes

I found this activity recently and thought it could make a great game for learning rooms in a house. What do you think?

Vocabulary game idea: Snow

This is a short and very simple activity which is great for vocabulary revision with the 3 and 4-year-olds.

Basically, you throw little papers with pictures of key vocabulary in the air saying “It’s snowing!”, and let kids pick them up. They enjoy it so much! The only rule is to pick the papers up one by one. Then they come to the teacher, or better yet, the class puppet, and give them the paper they have, saying the word on it. Then they can go back for another one.

It’s really easy to prepare, just filter black and white clipart images of your topic on your browser, copy and paste them on a Word sheet, and print out several copies. Then cut them out and there you have it, the "Snow” game that will last you for years.

Here’s an example of what I mean:

You can also mix in several topics and have your students split the “snowflakes” into categories, or use them in any way you see fit. Have fun!

THE QUIET GAME

It´s a Game For Keeping a Class Busy While the Teacher Answers the Phone, etc. I´ve just found it on “Heidi Songs” blog and I´m really looking forward to trying it out in my classroom. This is what Heidi writes:

What you need:
1.  Your teacher chair.
2.  A DISTRACTION that pulls you away from teaching your class for a minute or two- like a child wetting his pants, or a parent that MUST talk to you right away, in private!

How to play:
1. Choose one child to be the “starter.”  This child gets to sit in your teacher chair and chooses the quietest person in the room.
2. The person that gets chosen by the starter gets to be the next leader.  He gets to sit in the teacher chair and picks the next quietest person to sit in the teacher chair.
-Boys must pick girls, and girls must pick boys.  No “pick backs” allowed!
-No “stalling” allowed; (you can’t just sit there and pick no one, or the teacher will choose for you.  If I notice kids stalling, I call out, “Okay, I’m going to count to three, and then I will pick for you!”  That always does it.  They pick someone immediately!

The end of the game:
When you are done managing your DISTRACTION: have the person in the chair choose someone to start the game next time.  Don’t let the person in the chair be the starter next time, or kids may sit and “stall,” refusing to choose someone- usually because they hope to be the starter next time!

Tip:
* Keep track of who gets to be the next “starter” on a small white board and pin it to a wall or bulletin board nearby your teacher chair.  If you can find a small one that has a place to attach a little dry erase marker with an eraser on the end of it, then it will be really quick and easy to write it down each time.

* If my “starter” is absent or busy with something, then I usually have my helper of the day start the game.

The children in my class last year loved playing this game so much that they would whine about it if we didn’t get a chance to play during the day!  And, sometimes while a few of them were waiting for their parents to pick them up at the end of the day, they would play it while they waited!  They would even play it when there were only TWO children in the room!  You wouldn’t believe how dramatically they would think and think before they would choose that other person!  I even had a child play it once by herself!  She got a couple of dolls and bears from the playhouse, put them on the carpet squares, and proceeded to pick the “quietest” one!  (Don’t ask me how she made THAT decision!  Ah, the wonders of the Kindergarten imagination!)

HERE’S a link to the full article where you can find 4 more games that can help you with your classroom management.

St. Patrick’s Day TREASURE HUNT

This is an activity I do with my 5-year-olds around St. Patrick’s Day.

Some days before, I preteach some related concepts like “leprechaun”, “shamrock” and “pot of gold” using flashcards and this lovely song . They already know “hat” and “rainbow”. We take some time to find Ireland in a map. If you google “Ireland” you’ll come up with some really fantastic images and they’ll really get the kids’ imagination going.

Then we make our “leprechaun hats”.

The kids colour the pictures and cut them out, then I make a construction paper headband and staple the hat and the other two pictures on it. Now everyone is wearing something green.

Then we “discover” the leprechaun’s letter somewhere in the classroom and read it.

We decide to find the pot of gold so we go looking for the shamrocks around the school. Previously, I’ve put several envelopes with a shamrock sign on them in different places. But when we find the first one and I try to open it, it won’t. On the envelope there’s a question or a task for them to do. This shouldn’t be too difficult or too easy for them. I usually use something like this: “Name 3 farm animals” (as it’s last year’s vocabulary, so they might need to think a bit to remember) or “What’s green and can jump and swim?”. When they answer the question correctly, the envelope “magically” opens and inside it says where the next shamrock is, for example “Look for another shamrock by the window”. And so on. I think I used 4 or 5 envelopes last year, you don’t want to make it last too long as you could lose the children’s attention.

So the last envelope tells us to look for the nearest tree. We go outside to the playground and under a tree we find… A pot of gold! (chocolate coins, of course). It’s also nice to hang some sort of rainbow on the tree.

Everyone gets a “gold” coin and we decide to leave the rest for the leprechaun.

Obviously, it takes a bit of a preparation in advance but kids really enjoy it so I think it’s worth it. I hope this year I can remember to take some pictures and post them here later.

Please, tell me what YOU do for St. Patrick’s Day.

HALLOWEEN BALL TOSS GAME

Here’s a game I like to play with my students for Halloween. You will need a large cardboard box with several holes in it, preferably decorated, and one or several small balls (I usually use the orange containers from Kinder Surprise, they look a bit like tiny pumpkins).

Divide your class into teams or have them throw the balls individually. You can also asign points to each hole (3 points to the smallest hole and 1 points to the biggest one)and practise counting.

This is my “Monster box” we use for this game. Have fun!

MORE GAMES FOR YOUR ENGLISH CLASS

Here’s a selection of games I use in my lessons. Some of them are mine, but I found most of them on-line. I’m sorry I can’t aknowledge the authors because I never wrote down the sources.

The numbers in brackets are the age groups the game is most likely to interest.

These are simple, short, everyday games. I hope you like them!

GAMES TO PLAY IN THE CLASSROOM

I just found this lovely bunch of simple classroom games. I actually play many of them with my students! I think it’s great someone took their time to write them all down and share them. And remember – the simple ones are the best!

 

EASTER GAMES FOR THE CLASSROOM

Here are two games I like to play with my 4 and 5-year-olds around Easter. You’ll need some kind of Easter eggs for both. I use my wooden and felt eggs, but it would be great to use real hard-boiled Easter eggs. Also, natural-sized chocolate eggs would work for the spoon game. I’m not sure if they’d roll nicely though.

EGG IN A SPOON

Kids stand in two groups on opposite sides of the classroom. Give one of the students Easter Bunny ears, a spoon and an Easter egg, and tell them they must deliver the egg to someone on the other side of the classroom without dropping it from the spoon. While he or she makes their way across the classroom, I like having the other kids chant “Go, Easter Bunny, go!”. It’s really catchy so it helps them learn the new vocabulary.

“Easter Bunny” delivers the egg to whoever he/she likes, saying “Happy Easter!”, and the other one responds “Thank you, Easter Bunny!”. Then that kid is the Easter Bunny and has to deliver the egg to someone on the opposite side. Continue the game until everyone has got a chance to play.

EASTER EGG ROLL

First, you need to create a “slope” for the eggs to roll down. There usually are a variety of objects in the classroom that you can use, e.g. a box and a hardcover book. As you can see in the picture, I used a cardboard box and a wooden lid.

Then you might need to “secure the perimeter” of your game area, as you don’t want your eggs rolling under the chairs, closets, etc. I use whatever materials I can find in the classroom for this.

Kids roll the eggs down the slope in turns. The goal is to get your egg to bump into another egg. If you’re using naturally shaped eggs, remember that the egg will always roll in the direction of its pointy end. You can explain that to your students so they can target specific eggs.

Originally in the game, when your egg bumps into another, you get to keep both of them. If you have lots of eggs to play with and give away, you can do that. We usually just cheer and applaud and take it as a victory of the whole class.