Tatiana has just sent in this great game from Russia:
I’d like to share with you and other teachers one game for children. In Russia we call it “Hot Potato” and usually play in Russian. However when I started teaching English, I tried to play it in English- and my students love it. I’m sure the principle of this game is well-known, our “Hot Potato” is just a Russian variation.
The aim of the game is to practise numbers 1-20.You need a ball.
Number of players- not less than 5.
1. All children stand in a circle. Imagine that the ball is a hot potato and you can’t hold it in your hands for a long time, so speed of the game should be as high as possible.
2. Children throw the ball to each other and count from 1 to 20. For example, the first child says “One” and throws the ball to the second child. The second child says “Two” and throw the ball to the third child, etc till 20.
3. If a person makes a mistake (says wrong number or doesn’t remember the right number), he has to sit down in the middle of the circle.
4. When the last person gets the ball with “Twenty” he/she shouldn’t catch the ball but push it into the middle of the circle to hit the people sitting there!
5. If he/she hits someone they join the outer circle again!
6. If he/she doesn’t hit anyone, he also has to sit down in the middle of circle and wait till the next person gets “Twenty” and hits him.
7. Sometimes by the end of the game only 2 players left and the rest sit in the middle of the circle. There is no certain winner in this game. If a child still stand (not sit) in the circle, it’s a good result.
What do you think, I think I’d like to play it myself! You could also do this with any set of sequences words, e.g. days of the week or months of the year!
the boys in my group are very compeditive and genki so this game looks good for them