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What are your students' favorite games?
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Qinella



Joined: 25 Feb 2005
Location: the crib

PostPosted: Sun May 22, 2005 12:16 pm    Post subject: What are your students' favorite games? Reply with quote

I'm interested in gathering some new game ideas. Any age group would be great, although I'm mostly interested in flashcard-type games phonics students and something for middle school age.

As of now, the only games in my reportoire are:

- Slowly exposing a flash card from behind some type of barrier. Whoever calls it correctly first gets a point.
- Laying the flash cards out on the table. When I call a word, whoever touches it first gets a point.
- Writing two columns on the board labelled "left" and "right". Then I write various similar words or letters (I produce the phonetic letter sounds, not the letter names). Whoever calls out "Left!" or "Right!" first gets a point.
- The English spinoff of the Korean language game, where you make a word starting with the last letter of the previous word.
- Irregular verb BINGO that I made.

And when the students are really good, I will play Hangman with them at the end of class. They love that game.

I know there are resources on the net for games, but I'd rather hear about the ones that are tried and true. Thanks so much!

Cheers,
Qinella
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Bozo Yoroshiku



Joined: 23 Feb 2005
Location: Outside ???'s house with a pair of binoculars

PostPosted: Sun May 22, 2005 12:47 pm    Post subject: Re: What are your students' favorite games? Reply with quote

I can tell you that I Got Your Nose doesn't go over well (with co-teachers), although strangely enough Pull My Finger does.


--boz
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Grotto



Joined: 21 Mar 2004

PostPosted: Sun May 22, 2005 2:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

two chairs is a favorite one for classes of all sizes.

Put two chairs at the front of the class facing away from the board. Split the class into two teams and put two students in the chairs.

Rules: no Korean and no saying the word outright.

Stand behind the students and either write a word/sentence on the board or hold up a flashcard and the rest of the class has to give clues to get the student to say the word/sentence.

Once a student thinks they have it they raise their hand and say the answer.

Point for getting it right
minus a point for speaking Korean
saying the word minus a point and a point for the other team
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The Chewbacca Defense



Joined: 29 May 2004
Location: The ROK and a hard place

PostPosted: Sun May 22, 2005 3:12 pm    Post subject: ... Reply with quote

A game my kids love is quite simply called 'The Sit Down Game'.

Dead easy to play.

The teacher chooses a topic say, say for example, food. All the kids line up against the wall and the teachers rattles of a bunch of English words e.g. car, house, pencil, whale, HAMBURGER! When the students hear a foo vocab. word, they must sit down.

The last one to sit down is out. Great for developing listening skills as well as vocabulary.

You can change the rules to suit your class. Quick and easy game to play.
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Grotto



Joined: 21 Mar 2004

PostPosted: Sun May 22, 2005 3:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wink if you were Inuit wouldnt whale be a food Laughing
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paperbag princess



Joined: 07 Mar 2004
Location: veggie hell

PostPosted: Sun May 22, 2005 4:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

"what is it-tic tac toe" split the class into two teams. pick a word from your vocab and start describing it, "it's small, it's blue, etc..." and then the students have to say "is it a pail?" or whatever. if they get it right their team gets to put a mark on the tic tac toe board. whomever wins tic tac toe gets a point for their team. great game can take hours and it really helps with vocabulary
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Yu_Bum_suk



Joined: 25 Dec 2004

PostPosted: Sun May 22, 2005 4:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

With me it really depends on the class. I have some kids who are holy terrors but will become over-achievers hell-bent on solving a puzzle and will go through the grammar book just to get to do it. Then I have some boring, lazy write-offs who will just start making a paper aeroplane ( Wink Big Bird) the moment I hand them out. Word searches, hangman, and scrabble seem to be the favourites (they'd like ball games even more, but I won't do them). Crosswords aren't quite as popular but they're much more productive.
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yakey



Joined: 21 Apr 2003
Location: Korea

PostPosted: Sun May 22, 2005 4:55 pm    Post subject: Sight Card Basketball Reply with quote

I use this at camps a lot.

Get some sight cards.

Get a mini-basketball hoop.

Get an oversized die (dice). They sell them in E-Mart.

Make two teams (I always give them theme team names like Kittens vs. Puppies or Shrek vs. ET or something like that), having one person from each group in turns challenge one person in the other group to say what the flash card is first.

The winning person gets a point for their team.

And then the winner can then take a 1, 2 or 3 point shot for additional points for their team. You can mark the shots off with green tape in the classroom.

A roll of the oversized dice will determine how many basketball shots the person takes - from 1 to 6 shots.

When the score gets very uneven, raise the point totals on the shots so that one or two shots could get the losing team back into the game.
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Dan The Chainsawman



Joined: 05 May 2005

PostPosted: Sun May 22, 2005 8:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I divide the class up into teams of 2 to 3.

Give each one a dictionary, and a couple pieces of paper.

Have them look up a word, and draw out what it means.

1st team done wins.

They seem to spend as much time rooting through the Korean section of the dictionairies as the do the English. So you have to monitor them for that to help them stay on track.
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mindmetoo



Joined: 02 Feb 2004

PostPosted: Sun May 22, 2005 8:50 pm    Post subject: Re: What are your students' favorite games? Reply with quote

Qinella wrote:

- Slowly exposing a flash card from behind some type of barrier. Whoever calls it correctly first gets a point.


I do that too with my 8 year olds. But I then hum the instrumental piece "Tequila" while I slowly reveal the cards. The kids seem to love the sound track addition.
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Qinella



Joined: 25 Feb 2005
Location: the crib

PostPosted: Sun May 22, 2005 8:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks everyone - I'm printing this page out. Please keep the ideas coming!
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natemk



Joined: 08 Aug 2004
Location: center field

PostPosted: Sun May 22, 2005 10:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I like dividing the class into 2-3 teams. Writing 2 or 3 random letters on the board (middle school I'll use 3). Then give each team a chance to make a word. If they can, they get a point. I use the same system as previously mentioned of upping the points to get a losing team back in the game...

ex. I'll write MNO on the board

team#1 money .. 1 point
team#2 monopoly .. 1 point
team#1 november .. point
team#2 monday ..etc etc

then when they can't make a word within a reasonable amount of time, change up the letters

I also do a different version of the game by handing out little sheets of paper and having them make 9 words

- L N E
R library never rest
S slug nose september
T turtle note ten

First team to complete with correct spelling gets the point.

I hated playing the flashcard game with my middleschool because only the top level students really seemed to try and describe. It wasn't so much the lower level's lack of talent that made it hard, but I think they were shy. So instead of having one student come to the front of the class and describe the word to the rest, we have one student come to the front and the rest of their team describes it to them. You'll see students that regularly never talk get into it. Plus it's really funny to see 8 students all making the same actions (like all doing a scissors motion) and yelling, "cut cut cut!"

---

I detest bingo, but they really do love it.

I'm looking for some fresh ideas, so hopefully people will throw some more out.
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The Chewbacca Defense



Joined: 29 May 2004
Location: The ROK and a hard place

PostPosted: Sun May 22, 2005 10:59 pm    Post subject: ... Reply with quote

Another good one that you could try is this.....

The teacher-friendly word search.

I like to go to: http://puzzlemaker.school.discovery.com/WordSearchSetupForm.html

I make a word search related to whatever topic I am teaching.

I break the class up into teams of 2-3 students (or more if you have larger classes obviously!).

I get them to nominate a team name.

I give every student a copy of the same word search.
I write the team names up on the white board.

When the game starts, the students must first find a word on their paper, then run to the whiteboard and write the word correctly under their team name.

I give a running commentary as this is going on, calling out what team has what number of points. The winning team must have all the words found and EVERY paper must have the same set of answers in the group.

This exercise helps with spelling and develops team work as well as being fun.

I have used this exercise with both advance kindergarten classes and more recently, my university classes. These guys love it.

The more excited I get in the calling of results, the more the students respond. Hope this helps Very Happy
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The Chewbacca Defense



Joined: 29 May 2004
Location: The ROK and a hard place

PostPosted: Sun May 22, 2005 11:10 pm    Post subject: .... Reply with quote

A good game with flashcards is a game I like to call 'Survivor'

I get four or five hula-hoops (or you could just put the actual write the words on A4 paper and tape to the ground) and put the 2 or 3 flash cards in them.

The hoops are placed in different areas of the classroom, or if you are lucky to have one, the play area. I nominate numbers for each hoop or area. I give the following instructions like, you have to hop to hoop one, jump like a kangaroo to hoop 2, walk like a chicken to hoop 3 etc.

All the students start in the middle of the room. The teacher calls out a word from a flashcard. The students must to the corresponding action to where to word is located. The last student to reach the hoop or area is out. I also like to change the flashcards every couple of rounds just to mix things up.

I also like to play flashcard hopscotch with the really little ones. You can also place the cards around room in a path like formation and get them to jump on each card (note: laminated cards can make the kiddies slip so you might want to tape them down!....yes i found this out the hard way Rolling Eyes ).

OR

You can tape the flashcards to various places around the classroom and play a version of 'Simon Says..'. For example you would say 'Simon says touch the yellow banana' and play like with the normal rules of Simon Says.

Again, hope this helps.
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agraham



Joined: 19 Aug 2004
Location: Daegu, Korea

PostPosted: Sun May 22, 2005 11:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A version of gumariki (match the last letter of each word to the first letter of the next) that's a little less brainless: Use as many of the letters you can in the next word. I usually count off ten seconds on my fingers for each turn. You get a point for each letter you reuse. Example:
I write: dog
got: 2 points
great: 2 points
treat: 4 points
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