warmers,+games+and+activities


 * __ Warmers, Games and Activities __**

Children respond well to short activities interspersed throughout the lesson. You will need to change activity every 5 – 10 minutes for younger children and 10 – 15 minutes for slightly older children.

Children in general will only be able to concentrate on one thing for their age plus 2 e.g. a 4 year old can concentrate for about 6 minutes; a 6 year old for about 8 minutes – so not very long!

Get them moving around as much as is possible – children are kinaesthetic learners and it helps use up some of that energy otherwise they will get restless!!!

Always have an extra EMERGENCY activity up your sleeve – a game they particularly enjoy or a quick review of vocab – keep a vocabulary bag in the class (this is a GREAT idea!). Every day add the new words students have learned. This can be used to recycle vocab for revision, warmers, games, fillers, for early finishers – they can test each other, to write stories etc. Language learners and children in particular need constant revision. It is estimated that a learner needs to hear a word at least 7 times in order to remember it!

Warmers

It is always a good idea to revise what has been done in a previous lesson at the start of the next and a warmer allows you to do this (you could use the vocab bag here!)

Having a set structure to your lessons is advisable for children and it is a good idea to write on the board what you plan to do during the lesson and tick it off as you go through

e.g.

1. vocabulary race 2. song 3. new English 4. speaking to each other 5. game

Warmers are designed to be low demand – it is just to get them thinking in English, to review past work or to introduce a new topic. This stage should not be used for direct error correction. Most of the examples you will know and are generic childrens’ games – Can you think of some more you could use in an English language class?

Examples of warmers:

1) Roll call with a difference

Call out each child’s name with an extra comment

e.g. T: Maria? S: here! T: Maria is wearing a lovely red T-shirt today!

T: Pablo? S: here! T: It’s Pablo’s birthday today! Happy Birthday Pablo!

2) Do this, do that!

All students stand up. Teacher mimes actions e.g touching head. Spinning around. If the teacher says ‘do this’ the students do the same. If the teacher says ‘do that’ the students do not copy. If a student does the action on a ‘do that’ they must sit down. The last student standing wins.

An extension is to allow a student to give the instructions!

3) Slow reveal picture

Teacher holds up a large picture at the front of the class and slowly reveals it bit by bit – the students try to guess what it is e.g. pictures of a car, train, bus etc if the day’s topic is transport

4) Sit down if…

Teacher chooses various phrases about the children – they must sit down if the phrase is true for them

e.g. sit down if you walk to school sit down if you like dogs sit down if you don’t like English!

A variation of this is ‘Swap seats if you…’ – depends on the layout of the classroom as to which is more appropriate.

5) Ordering sentences

Teacher has single words on cards. E.g.

HOW OLD ARE YOU ?

Teacher calls up the number of students to the front as there are cards (for this example therefore you would need 5 students – 1 for the question mark!). The students at the front stand out of order and the students remaining seated call out the correct order. Teacher can then ask the question around the class. This works well for a first lesson to find out about the students and then they can ask you the questions. Check their level first!

e.g. Have you got a pet? Have you got any brothers and sisters? What’s your name? Where are you from?

(The questions can be blu-tacked to the board or wall as a reference for later.)

6) I went on holiday and I took…

Student 1 starts off – I went on holiday and I took a T-shirt Student 2 continues – I went on holiday and I took a T-shirt and a ball Student 3 continues – I went on holiday and I took a T-shirt, a ball and a book Continue around the room- to avoid this getting tedious you can ‘pounce’ on students – where possible AVOID going around the room in order

7) Realia

Use real life objects

e.g. bring in your suitcase with a selection of (appropriate!) items in it – the students have to guess what is inside (could work well with a first class especially low levels as a lot of the vocab will be similar e.g. camera, CD, photo etc – this is what I brought to France, Spain etc and ask the students if it was a good idea or a bad!) e.g. camera, sunglasses, an English novel, a phone, an ipod, pictures of your family, etc etc

you could extend this by asking them to draw a suitcase, nomination countries and ask them to draw and label what they will take on holiday. Stick them up around the room for the others to look at.

What was the most unusual item? The funniest item? The biggest item? The smallest item? (all these adjectives can be mimed!)

8) Hangman sentences 9) Bus stop 10) Things starting with the letter ‘?’ in a picture

Activities

1) Broken telephone

2) Back drawing

3) You can’t get over unless…

4) Interesting ways of scoring points

5) Draw a monster

6) Pellmanism

7) Kim’s game

10)Reconstructing a picture

11) Putting pictures in order

12) Guess who?