Best Preschool Games
Other games that work well in preschool:
And there are even more ESL games ideas in Joel Bacha's Curriculum Guide Book
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New: Try the Baby Sign Song!
For Kindgartens in Japan, my recommendation is:
How to use these Kindergarten Games
 First choose an English topic from the curriculum page, then a game from this page to practise it. Good starters are left & right, greetings, feelings, or colours. Remember, just playing a game is no good, there should always be some
target English behind it.
Just about all the themes work great in kindergarten. The only ones to avoid are conceptually difficult
ones like "countries" or "telling the time", 90% of
the others work even better in kindergarten than they do in elementary
school!
Many of the games on the main "Games Page" work very well in kindergarten, and indeed many of them were first
developed there.
The ideas on this page have been specially selected for use with younger
beginners. But here are a few tips to help you out:
Vary, vary, vary: Every class and every child is different, change the class to meet the needs of the kids
If at first you don't succeed: All these games work great in Kindergarten, that's the only criteria for
them being selected. But if at first you don't succeed, change it a bit
and try it next time!
Keep it short: Especially young kids have short attention spans, don't plan a 20 minute
game, they'll be bored after just 5! If kids are wondering off, let them!
Keep going with the kids that are interested and the others may come back.
Under control: If the kids start getting out of control, well they're kids so don't expect them to sit still! But if you want to tire them out a bit, then do lots of "stand ups", "jumps" etc. see the Warm Up Game
Fun Colours: Use bright picture cards to teach words. Don't use writing, the kids probably don't know the alphabet
in their native language!
Get them talking: Don't make the mistake of starting with "ABCs", they'll be
bored as anything and it's not going to help them communicate!
Can't remember : Don't expect the kids to remember the words, just keep going. However songs really do help, the best ever Genki English show was at a kindergarten!.
Take a break! Teaching kindergarten is fun, but it's the most tiring teaching you'll
ever do! Take breaks!
It's all worth it: Sometimes you may think you are getting nowhere with millions of kids
screaming and running around and seemingly learning nothing. But experience
shows that starting languages in kindergarten gives the kids an unbelievable
advantage later on!
Smile and Be Genki! Above all, enjoy it!
You might also want to have a look at our new series of books and videos
for kids aged 0-6, called
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