To lead into the numbers version of Do you have any pets? we first had to practice some numbers. Here are a couple of really fun games to go with the numbers song, one probably better than the other, which do you think?
Thumb Sumo / Thumb War
Numbers Games in Tokyo
Earn More From Your Passion For Teaching English!
I never thought of using the “thumb fight”game in an English class… though its one of my favorites games with my little nieces (specially in the car, when the trip is long!) It’s lots of fun! good idea!
Regarding the “unlucky 13” I play it as “bomb 13” in the same manner, the only difference is that when we get to “13” the whole class says the number: “THIRTEEN” + the a loud bomb exploding noise and the child who got the bomb to explode “goes to sleep”(head down on desk and is out until there’s a winner… the “losers”can participate to the bomb explosion!). I have a small class 14 kid so we all play together. Sometimes, I start with a random number or do the number backwards -in this case the bomb explodes when they say zero- and they have to continue, so they have to really listen! I also play this game with the days of the week and the months of the year, the difference is that the bomb explodes when the wrong one is mentioned, here to (when I think that they should know the word really well, I start randomly eg. Wednesday and they have to follow through to Tuesday). My class loves it!
Nena
Nena,
these are excellent additional ideas.
Japanese kids play these games so often (in Japanese of course) that they get bored too easily when doing them the “straight way” in English.
I’ll try your ideas.
Thank you.
I teach kindergartners and my class size is really small, usually only 4 students. So I changed the rules a little bit for the Time Bomb game and they had a blast.
When you reach 13, instead of being out I say you’ve been exploded by a bomb! Make a “dead” face! The kid proceeds to make a dead face, sometimes accompanied by sound effects, everyone laughs and no one is out. The next round begins. If you have a shy kid who just doesn’t want to make the dead face, I let them get away with just saying thirteen and move on.