Resources from The Magic CrayonsMaterials: chairs and/or pre-made flash card vocab necklaces
Time: 8-10 minutes
Receptive Language: instructions, target vocab
Productive Language: target vocab
Game Explanation: Give each student a target vocab-themed card or necklace, making sure that there are several students for each item/term, & have the children sit in a circle on chairs, with you in the middle. Call out a vocabulary term (‘Banana!’). Any student with a banana card or necklace has to get up & change seats while you try to sit down in any (temporarily) vacant chair. Whoever is left without a chair must stand in the middle & call out the next item. If the person in the centre calls out ‘Fruit basket!’ or ‘Crazy time!’ (or whatever term you’ve decided to use), everyone must change seats.
Resources from The Magic CrayonsTime: 5 minutes
Receptive Language: instructions, various
Productive Language: flash card vocab
Game Explanation: Become a bus by ‘driving’ around the room, stopping to pick up students & only allowing them to ‘board’ (i.e. form a train behind you) if they can correctly identify a flash card. Repeat until all of the students are aboard. Ride around the room & crash dramatically into stuff as part of the big, crazy finale.
8. What's Missing - Magic Envelope
Resources from The Magic CrayonsMagic Envelope
Time: 5-8 minutes
Receptive Language: ‘What’s missing?’
Productive Language: unit vocabulary
Game Explanation: Show the students a manageable number of flash cards & have them repeat them after you. Have the students look away or close their eyes (though, as this may be difficult, especially with younger students, you might want to simply indulge in some sleight-of-hand) while you remove one or two cards and place them in the Magic Envelope. The first student (or students) to correctly identify which cards are missing scores a point / gets to keep the card.
Note: This game is easily adapted to a Team version.
9. Ostrich Dance Or The Headless Chicken Game
Resources from The Magic CrayonsTime: 6-10 minutes
Receptive Language: instructions
Productive Language: flashcard vocab
Game Explanation: Attach cards to the backs of two students. The first student to identify the card on his opponent’s back is the winner. The students are not allowed to touch each other (you will probably have to enforce this rule). You may also have to penalize students who play a strictly defensive game.
Amazon: