It’s all been a bit serious last week, so let’s start off the new term with something quick & silly to review some verbs & animals!
1. Pre-teach some silly action words in the warm up e.g. hop, skip, jump, bow, wiggle, stretch or even cartwheel if you are feeling adventurous!
2. Put today’s animal flashcards on the board either these, these or these. (or even Halloween monsters!)
3. Put the kids in two lines. (Or more if you have bigger classes.)
4. The kids shout out a question such as “What are we doing today?”
5. You (or the previous winner) then shout out one of the silly action words plus one of the animal cards e.g. “Hop to the dog”, “Wiggle to the snail”, “Stretch to the hippo” etc.
6. The kids then have to do this action whilst going to touch this animal on the board!
Ninja Tip: Now you’re reading this thinking “that’s kinda boring” but just watch what the kids come up with! 🙂
7. Give points for style and amusement rather than being the fastest!
(Plus if you’ve done “What are you doing?” give bonus marks if they can say “I’m wiggling to the snail” etc.!)
Enjoy!
Earn More From Your Passion For Teaching English!
Wow!
Know what?
This game works great with countries and past tense as well:
What did you do in the summer?
I went swimming in China.>>>Wonderful idea! Thanks!
Agh, I always forget to have the kids do different actions during these “simple” basic karuta style games. This past week, I did a lot of hammer hitting the flashcards spread out on the ground to review/teach new words. The kids go insane with the hammers.
I’ll have to give this a definite try, though. Great way to review and USE multiple topics and English.
This new game came up at the right time! Thanks a lot.
I just taught my 1st graders animals, and what an exciting way to do the review. They will be learning verbs in a very FUN way.
This reminds me of a twist we use to play on steal the bacon. You put the card in the middle (or ball or whatever you want to be the bacon) and each team lines up on opposite sides. Each member of the team has to be one of the animals that you have reviewed. Then you call out that animal or the action corresponding to the animal and the two students who are that animal (one from each team) race to see who can get to the bacon first and return to their team without getting tagged by the other! Of course they have to wiggle, crawl, flop, etc. the whole time!