Basketball

Materials: a small ball and a basket – either a (clean!) wastebasket or a large water jug cut in half – whatever you can find, really
Description: Students line up in a single file line in front of the basket. To start with, the front of the line is pretty close to the basket, but I [...]

This is a What?

Materials: Two (or more, if you’re feeling bold) random, small objects, such as a marker or comb.
Description: Students stand in a circle. You, the leader, show the group one of the objects and tell them what it is. Let’s say it’s a marker. You then turn to the person on your left (“Person1″) and prompt [...]

How Many Words?

Materials: paper and a pen for each team/individual
Description: This is a fun competition game I play between different parallels (7A vs. 7B, etc), but it can also be a competition within a class. Give the participants a phrase of at least two words, and they have to try and create as many new words as [...]

Disappearing Vocabulary

Materials: White board and markers/blackboard and chalk
Description: I read this activity in a book, and didn’t believe it would work until I actually tried it! Write new vocabulary words on the board – no more than about ten at a time. Go down the list, pointing to each word as the students repeat it after [...]

Cell Phone Scavenger Hunt

Materials: One cell phone camera for each group of kids (I usually tell the kids their groups can be anywhere from two to five people – as long as one person in the group has a camera).
Description: This has to be done as a homework assignment (unless you want to let your little dears run [...]

Mafia: A game of deception

Materials: A Deck of Cards

Description: Take a deck of cards and remove enough cards for all the “players” in the game. If I have a smaller class or a SIP class, each student gets a card – If I’m playing in a class, then students play in teams of two.  There should be a small [...]

Team Scattegories

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Materials: None

Description: Yes, it’s Scattegories, the party game that we all remember! If you have a smaller group of students, adapting this game to the classroom is easy. A round of Scattegories works like this: You have the students take out a sheet of [...]