Resources from The Magic CrayonsTime: 5-7 minutes
Receptive Language: ‘Touch (colour)’
Productive Language: colours
Game Explanation: Call out a colour. The students race to find & touch an object of the same colour somewhere in the classroom within a predetermined time limit.
Note: This game can be played with all of the students racing to touch objects at the same time (good for nen-sho classes), in teams, or individually. Modify as needed. The flashcard can be shown to sho. For Chu, show them the card and try to get them to produce the language as a group when they touch it. For cho just try saying the color (no f/c) then get them to repeat the language after they have identified it.
Materials: shoes
Time: 10 minutes
Receptive Language: “Put on / Take off your shoes!”
Productive Language: “Put on / Take off my shoes” etc
Game Explanation: Have all the students remove their shoes and dump them in a pile at one end of the classroom. Two teams. One student from each team races, on your command, to find their shoes & put them on. The faster student scores a point for his or her team.
Materials: appropriate books or magazines
Time: 8-10 minutes
Receptive Language: “Find a (____)”
Productive Language: various
Game Explanation: Two teams, each with a book or magazine (located at the far end of the classroom from the teams, if you like). Call out an object. The students must race to find the object in the book or magazine. The fastest team to do so scores a point.
Note: This activity works particularly well for the animal and clothing units, as the kindergartens will probably have several animal books lying around and any fashion magazine will be jam packed with examples of the target language (allowing you to vary the commands, i.e. by asking the students to find a ‘brown hat’ or a ‘red jacket,’ etc).
Resources from The Magic CrayonsTime: 8-10 minutes
Receptive Language: flashcard vocab
Productive Language: flashcard vocab
Game Explanation: Review the colour & clothing flashcards, making sure to point out examples of card combinations such as ‘blue socks’ or ‘yellow t-shirt.’ Have two students stand facing each other for 10 or 15 seconds before getting them to stand back-to-back. Ask one of the students to identify one article of the other student’s outfit (‘Black socks’). If he can do so, he scores a point & the other student gets a chance. Continue until the students run out of articles of clothing to identify.
Note: This activity works best with older kagai students. Not recommended for seika nen-sho classes, though nen-cho students may be able to handle it, provided you give them a thrilling & action-packed demonstration with the Japanese teacher.
Materials: t-shirts, shoes, socks, gloves, hats, etc
Time: 10 minutes
Receptive Language: “Put on the (article of clothing)”
Productive Language: clothing
Game Explanation: Two teams, each with a corresponding chair draped in matching (i.e., the same items for each team) articles of clothing on the other side of the room. One student from each team races to don whatever article of clothing you call out, name it, remove it, and return to his or her team, with the faster student scoring a point. Make sure the students name the clothing they’ve put on before removing it.