Russell Stannard has more fun in the classroom.
In the last issue I suggested some websites with traditional children’s playground games. Here are two more that I have been looking at:
www.indianchild.com/outdoor_games.html
There are five more pages of games here, including one called Miami, which I have adapted for all sorts of activities (see below).
http://kotn.ntu.ac.uk/peace/play.html
This has a nice list of games. Scroll down as they are at the bottom of the page.
Some of the games can be played in their original form as described on the websites; others can be adapted for the ELT classroom. Here are some that you might like to try.
Pass the parcel
This adaptation of a children’s party game is great for practising numbers and works well with classes of about 20 to 30 students. There are two ways of playing it.
- Put the students in a circle and give one student a pencil case or something to pass round. Tell them they have to pass the pencil case clockwise. Explain that you will tell them how many students it has to be passed around. For example if you say five, then the students pass the pencil case five times. The whole class should count as the pencil case gets passed from one student to the next. Then call out another number and repeat the process.
- To make the game more difficult, say a number and a direction, for example twenty clockwise or ten anticlockwise. The students have to pass the pencil case the right number of times and in the correct direction (you can use left and right if you prefer).
Variations
Use ordinals so the students have to practise first, second, third, etc. Instead of using numbers, say words. The students have to spell the word, each saying one letter from it and then passing on the pencil case.
Doggy, Doggy, where’s your bone?
This game is useful for practising past simple questions with to be. Sit one student at the front of the class in a chair facing away from the class and put an object such as an eraser (which represents a bone) under the chair. One student from the class sneaks to the front and takes the eraser. The class then sings ‘Doggy, Doggy, where’s your bone? Someone’s stolen it from your home.’ The student at the front has five guesses to find out who it was by asking the question ‘Was it (Maria)?’ The class have to say ‘Yes, it was’ or ‘No, it wasn’t’.
Telephone line
Write about five short messages (based on language you want to practise) on separate pieces of paper. Put the students in a circle and then whisper the first message to one student, who then whispers it to the second student and so on until it goes right round the circle. Send the other messages round in the same way. The last student in the circle, the secretary, has to write the messages down. At the end, compare what the secretary has written with the five original messages. You can add a game element by awarding a point to the class for every message they get right and a point to yourself for every one they get wrong.
Tip
Don’t wait for the first message to arrive before starting the next as otherwise there will be too many students not doing anything. Once a message has been passed to about ten students, begin to send another one.
Miami
My students love this game and it can be used to practise numbers, ordinals, letters and vocabulary items. To practise the numbers 1 to 20, hand out large pieces of paper with the numbers 1 to 20 on them. Tell the students to stand in a circle and hold up their pieces of paper. Call out two numbers, for example 10 and 12. The students with these numbers go to the middle, swap their numbers and then go back to where they were standing as quickly as they can. The game needs to be played at quite a pace, so call out another two numbers as they are returning to their places. This also works well if you have flash cards and call out the names of the objects pictured on them.
Throw the ball
This is another game based on Miami. Put the students in a circle and ask one student to stand in the middle with a ball. Tell them that they have to throw the ball to another student and say a number. That student then has to throw the ball back and say the next number. For example, if the student in the middle throws the ball and says 12, the student who catches it throws it back and says 13. If a student fails to catch the ball or says the wrong number, then they are out of the game.
Variations
You can do lots of variations on this game:
- The student who throws the ball says an adjective (eg tall); the other says the opposite adjective (eg short).
- The student who throws the ball says a letter; the other says the next letter.
- The student who throws the ball says a number but also says more or less; the other says the number above or below it.
Tip
This game works best if the student in the middle is very competent. Alternatively, you can be the person in the middle. When you throw the ball, say the name of the person you are throwing it to first. So for example Tom, five. Tom then catches the ball and then throws it back, saying Six.
Russell Stannard is a senior lecturer in ICT and course leader for MSc Multimedia at the University of Westminster, UK. He has an extensive publishing background in ELT and is currently working with BBC Worldwide on various CD-ROMs, and with Macmillan Hong Kong on a primary course. He also teaches English and Spanish at Sutton Adult Education College, UK.
This article first appeared in English Teaching Professional, Issue 38, 2005