• Prep: Either make a few random
Amazon Bingo Sheets to print out and bring to class, or have students fill out grids at home to play next class (if you!ve tried to have kids do this on the spot you know why).
• If you don!t need to swing the game in favor of the loser kid and want it to be truly left to chance, a box with a whole on the top makes it a lot more fun for everyone.
• If Box: Take turns with the students drawing and announcing cards (or, if you!re super cool, ping pong balls)
• Keep in mind you can set up bingo like a battle ship grid, so instead of calling out “E!” you!re calling out “E-B.”
Difficulty settings suggestions:
• Nen Sho
• Nen Chu
• Nen Cho: Attaining “bingo” ends the game and earns 2 points. At this point all students are given a minute or two to make words using the letters that have been ticked off on their game sheets (boggle style). Each correct word earns 1 point, so even if you didn!t get "bingo! you can still win.
• Prep: depending on the number of students/teams playing, any number of pairs of target letters/anchor word cards.
• Deal each player 5 cards.
• Player to the left of the dealer starts (or let janken decide) and asks any other player “name, do you have a __,” or, “name, please give me __.”
• If the player being asked has the card in question, it is relinquished to the asker. If not, he replies with a hardy, “go fish!” or “Aarrrrgh, go fish!” at which point the asker draws a card from the undealt stock.
• If the card drawn is the card that was asked for, player gets to go again. If not, the player still keeps it, but it is the next player!s turn.
• The aim is to make as may pairs as possible. When a pair is created, it leaves a player!s hand and is placed face up on the table before him.
• The game continues until a player empties his hand, or the stock is exhausted.
Difficulty settings suggestions:
• Nen Sho: As is.
• Nen Chu: Use upper and lower case letters.
• Nen Cho: Use upper and lower case letters. When game is over give bonus points if players can spell words with their cards. OR (if your class is bright and really likes card games) simply play some sort of phonic Gin Rummy with alpha cards and instead of making runs and sets, require the players to make words (will require extra vowel cards). Perhaps more realistic for ni-nensei…
• Get the students to help you write the target letters on sheets of paper-origami size is good, and the different colors will help out younger students a lot- one set of letters (upper and lower case) per sheet.
• Cut the sheets of paper into simple-ish puzzles.
• Mix up all the pieces, and have the students race to put them back together.
• Elicit the phonics from the students once puzzles are complete (if students are
particularly slow, try setting a time limit). Maybe completing a puzzle is worth 1 point, and you can earn extra points by providing the letter name and phonic sound/anchor word.
Difficulty settings suggestions:
• Nen Sho: as written above. If students are at all competent at drawing, maybe draw quick pictures of the anchor words (all of the vowels have fairly easy to draw anchor words, after all)
• Nen Chu: If far enough in the year/term, try using simple [3 letter] words rather than upper/lower case letter combos. If students are having trouble sounding out words, try playing with “word families” (a simple and familiar set of words like “cat” “bat” and “hat”). Have students pronounce phonics individually while assembling puzzles to encourage sounding out words.
• Nen Cho: Again, use words. Break out the “magic e” and elicit two readings from each puzzle (i.e. “hat” and “hate”).
• Depending on the amount of prep you feel up to, there are two approaches you can take.
1) use tape and FCs to map out a course on the ground a la the phonics mazes in the activity book.
2) make a maze out of classroom tables and chairs and place face down flash cards throughout.
• Basic game focuses on one phonic. As the activity referred to above, paths marked by words starting with the target phonic sound are traversable, the others are not.
• Get to the goal.
Difficulty settings suggestions:
• Nen Sho:
• Nen Chu: Have the students go through the maze by themselves, but have them make a map. When all students have completed have them check each other!s maps (out loud).
• Nen Cho:
• Prep: Hint cards detailing item/card locations. Also, cards should be hidden throughout the classroom (or outside, if you can manage. What an adventure!!) before class. Map (optional). Kind of time consuming for a phonic game, but, if it!s done right, it!ll probably be worth it.
• Explain that you!ve found a hint to the location of Gol D. Roger!s legendary “one piece” (or whatever, although I!m fairly certain any reference to “one eyed willie” will be lost)
• Your quest starts with a simple hint card (map optional): something like a picture of a piano, or a quarter note to indicate that the next hint is around the piano.
• Remember, your clues don!t all have to be gimmies. It!s ok if you have to read the clue cards as long as you use words they know so they can help with the treasure hunt. If a clue says “I live outside, I!m white, have long ears and I like carrots. I!m the gatekeeper, are you the keymaster?” they!ll understand outside, white, ears and carrots, so the next clue is obviously somewhere around Mimi-chan the school!s rabbit.
• Some (or all) hint cards are accompanied by a letter card. When all letters are collected it spells the final hint, where the one piece is hidden (smelly sock, anyone?)
Difficulty settings suggestions:
• Nen Sho: Keep the hints simple so you!re not completely running the show. Also, try and make sure they!re able to sound out most of the final clue with no help.
• Nen Chu: Try dumbed down ichi-nensei rules. If you!re left doing most of the work,
• Nen Sho: Try words instead of pictures on the hint cards. Also, try placing the letter cards out of order, so they have to unscramble the word (straining to read nonsense words gives them hints and is HILarious, apparently). Also, false leads can test their vocabulary.
16. Darumansan Ga Eigo Wo Hanashita!
Note: “darumasan ga koronda” is basically Japanese “red light, green light” with subtle changes. If you!re unfamiliar with it, it has a wikipedia page.
• Hopefully students are familiar with the original Japanese game. Explain to them that in this variation the oni must say “darumasan said __,” where is any letter of their choosing as long as its phonic is being covered that day. (feel free to replace “darumasan” with “sensei” or whoever)
• After the oni has spoken the key phrase and turns the other players must freeze and say a word starting with that letter!s phonic.
• If a player answers incorrectly (or takes an excessive amount of time) they must join the oni, take a step back, or return to the starting line; whatever!s clever.
• For maximum effect encourage poses when freezing, and have rounds where students must hop or move like certain animals rather than simply running to the oni.
Difficulty settings suggestions:
• Nen Sho: Make sure you!re the oni for a while at first. Allow students to overuse the anchor word in their responses, but be sure to cycle through several phonic when you prompt “darumasan said __”
• Nen Chu: encourage students as oni. Use of non-anchor words earns the player an extra step towards the oni.
• Nen Cho: Cho rules are fine.
• You all know this game.
• While some students just seem to "get! phonics, others can seem hopelessly lost, so be sure to keep the categories simple (YES: “animals,” NO: “"80s one hit wonders”).
• Help out by sounding out any correctly guessed letters, etc.
Difficulty settings suggestions:
• Nen Sho: I wouldn!t even think of trying to play this with nen-chus …
• Nen Chu: If you really feel you can try this with your chos remember to keep the words very short (“cat,” “dog,” stuff like that). Also, try giving free letters (for example, they should be familiar with words like “rock” and “sock” but learning the rule for “-ck” is a couple years off, so make the “c” a freebie). Also, try under scoring vowels a different color
• Nen Cho: Again, keep the words short. Also, to ensure students have any chance at winning, try sticking to words they!ve worked with in LSP, as well as letting them reference their books while playing .
• Prep: You!ll need a few sets of balls (roughly tennis ball sized) to play this (3 bass per player/team) and unless you play outside, you!ll want some sort of sheet to lay on the ground to provide friction. Some Daisos have sheets of felt that would work nicely.
• Divide the class into teams where appropriate (bocce is best with 4 players with 2 balls apiece, but whatever)
• Draw a series of concentric circles on the felt. Each circle represents a target phonic.
• A random player throws the pallino (a smaller ball that serves as the target) into the game field. The same player also throws the first ball.
• Players must ID the ring their balls fall within (by letter, phonic, etc) or forfeit their next turn. (maybe be a good idea to have phonic for “out of bounds” as well)
• Player who manages to get closest to the pallino wins.
• Note for those unfamiliar with bocce: it!s totally cool to knock other players balls (and the pallino) out of the way with your own. It!s the best part of the game, actually.
• Materials needed: several sets of vowel cards,
• Rules are similar to the card game “bull****.”
• Deal out all cards (face down)
• Dealer (you) says a target word containing a short vowel. Either anchor words, or one syllable words whose nucleus contains a short vowel (e.g. “cat”) are fine, but be sure to stick to one type per round, to minimize confusion.
• The first player identifies the vowel used (e.g. “A”), takes all “A” cards from his hand and places them face down on the table in what becomes the community stack declaring the number of cards while doing so (e.g. “Four "As!.”)
• Before the dealer says the next word, should the next player doubt that the first player has played the cards specified (perhaps P1 played 3 "As! and an "E,! or all "Es! for that matter), he has the option to challenge. Also, if the next player thinks the wrong vowel was identified (e.g. four "As! declared and played in response to the word “dog”), then, again, he can challenge. This is done by yelling “bull” (or some other word).
• Should the cards be contested, they are turned over and checked. If P1 did in fact play what he said he played, and identified the correct vowel, P2 must collect all the cards in the community stack. If P1 was fibbing, or identified the incorrect vowel, he must collect all the cards.
• First player to empty his hand wins.
• Materials needed: alpha flash cards (although scrabble tiles would be awesome for mahjong-esk tile-slamming action).
• First player (you) starts with a word [that you feel the students can rhyme]. Note: when setting cards/tiles leave a space between the starting phonic and the end sound (i.e. “H_AT”)
• Next player replaces the starting phonic (depending on level, encourage consonant blends) and reads new word
• Before player changes phonic, however, he can challenge the previous player as to the validity of the last word created by shouting “BULL!!”(or “BALOGNA!” or “LIAR!” or “BUU- BUU!!” or whatever)
• Dictionary (READ: you) decides if challenged word is, indeed, a word (if feasible, explain what word means). If not, player who made the word is out (or receives a demerit or whatever)