Category: Primary

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A1 A2 Adult B1 Games Materials numbers Primary Reading Secondary Time Treasure Hunt

QR Code Time Treasure Hunt

qr code time treasure hunt

This is a fun activity to practice telling the time in English. You could translate it for other languages and vary the level depending on your students.

This is a fun and engaging way to motivate your students, giving them a real reason to tell the time! It’s based on reading and understanding skills, so even if students aren’t that good at writing and spelling, they can still take part.

How to use it

Just download and print out the document and cut out the QR codes. Stick them around your class or school, or any other safe area you can use, and give each student or team one of the answer sheets.

Each answer sheet has a start time and an end time. Students scan the QR codes using a mobile device and have to draw the correct time on the clocks. There is a penalty for each incorrect answer. You can decide how much you want the penalty to be, I tend to use 10 seconds. This encourages accuracy!

The winner has the shortest time after all penalties have been added.

Important stuff

The document is in DOCX format and has lots of extra QR Codes so that you can change the quiz if you like and adapt it to your students’ level before printing it out.

You will need a mobile device with a QR code reader for each student or team participating. Most phones these days have one in the camera, but if not, there are many free ones on the Apple and Google Play stores. Make sure you prepare this in advance though, if they need to have it downloaded.

Let me know if you use this activity in your class and how it goes!

Download it here : https://classroomgames.net/product/qr-code-time-treasure-hunt/

Categories
A1 Games Infant Primary Vocabulary

Hallowe’en Pumpkin Game

Here’s a game to practice face vocabulary with young learners using Hallowe’en-themed pumpkins. It’s a very simple game that you can use to support you other planning in the ESL/ESOL classroom.

I made this game last night, in preparation for Hallowe’en and it’s very easy to play. Just download the zip file at the bottom of this post. It contains 3 PDFs to print.

  • One is the Pumpkin boards. You will need one for each student. Print out single-sided and laminate.
  • The other 2 PDFs are the front and back of the playing cards. You need to print the cards double-sided. The Halloween pumpkin pattern for the reverse of the cards is designed to stop students being able to see through the cards if you print using paper. I find paper better to use and cut when laminating, as it’s less work. When I use card, I have to have a laminated border around each card, which is a lot more work to do and cut, plus the cards won’t fit on the board easily. Therefore I try to make the cards so I can use paper.
  • There are 8 possible faces for 8 possible students to play at once. You will need 8 pumpkin cards if you are going to use all the faces. If you have groups bigger than 8, you will need multiple copies of the faces and split the class into groups of up to 8 students.

How to play.

Give each student a pumpkin board and allocate them a face colour.

Put all the cards face down on the table and mix them up.

Students take it in turns to pick up a card and place it on their board. Ask them to say the name of the face part when they do so, to practise and repeat vocabulary in a controlled way.

Downloads.

Download the PDFs here : https://www.classroomgames.net/materials/Halloween-Pumpkin-Game.zip

Categories
A1 A2 Adult Games Present Continuous Primary Secondary Speaking

Present Continuous Conversation Game

What is it?

This is a fun game that you can use to practise the Present Continuous tense in positive, negative and question forms with either one-to-one classes or with groups of students.

It has been made in a pictorial form, so it is not necessarily just useful for English teachers, and can be adapted for any language classroom.

How to play

Print off one copy of the worksheet for each student playing.

Students take it in turns to select one of the names without letting anyone know whom they have chosen.

Other students ask present continuous questions to guess the person.

You can practice using He, She and They pronouns as many names are gender neutral for inclusivity.

“Are they wearing a shirt?”
“No, they’re not.”
“are they wearing a skirt?”
“Yes, they are.”
“Are they reading?”
“Yes, they are.”
“Are they wearing glasses?”
“Yes, they are.”
“Are they wearing socks?”
“Yes, they are.”
“Is it Blake?”
“Yes. It is.”

Where can I get it?

Download the game from the shop for free for the next 6 months using this link:

https://classroomgames.net/product/present-continuous-conversation-game/

Categories
A2 Adult B1 B2 Escape Games Family Games Materials Primary Secondary Speaking Vocabulary

Family Escape Game

Written to practice vocabulary relating to family and family relationships, you can play this Escape Game with students from about 11 years old upwards, depending on their level.

It utilises in-laws, so you will have to make sure the required vocabulary is pre-taught. Students solve a series of puzzles. After each puzzle they enter their answer into a google docs form. After entering each answer, they receive a part of the final puzzle.

There are 5 puzzles in total, they need to solve the puzzles in order. You will need access to a device connected to the internet for each team in order to input the answers and also for puzzle 3, which utilises the website, what3words.com.

The PDF is free for personal classroom use and download for 6 months from the posting date, so go and get it today and don’t forget to subscribe to my TikTok and Instagram to receive updates when I upload new materials.

Download

https://classroomgames.net/product/family-escape-game/

Categories
A1 A2 Animals Games Materials Primary Reading Review Secondary Treasure Hunt writing

Animal Treasure Hunt

Our third treasure hunt is an animal-themed one. It pretty much follows the same sort of idea as the other 2 I’ve posted, but all the clues describe animals.

You can use it to review animal vocabulary, as part of an animal unit, CLIL science lesson, etc.

What to do

Download the PDF at the end of this post.

Print and cut out the clues and stick them up around your space. It can be a classroom, playground, wherever.

Each animal has it’s corresponding clue in the text underneath, so you can easily stick them back-to-back and laminate them if you want to reuse them.

There are 2 different circular treasure hunts. The left column is one hunt, the right column is the other. So you can have two teams if you wish, or even several staggared teams. You can start with ANY animal. When you arrive back at the same animal you started with, you have finished.

How to play

Give each player/team an answer sheet. They write their name and start time at the top.

Students follow the clues, writing the names of the animals in order on their sheets.

When they finish, write the finish time and calculate their total time. Fastest wins.

There are penalty points for misspelled answers, wrong answers and if the animals aren’t in order, you know they have cheated, or made a mistake.

You can decide how much time you want to add for each penalty, but I tend to give 5 seconds for a misspelling, 20 seconds for an incerrect answer and a minute if the answers aren’t in order. I explain this at the start to discourage cheating.

Download

Download the PDF of the Treasure Hunt here : https://classroomgames.net/product/animal-treasure-hunt/

 

Categories
A2 Back to School Games Primary Review Secondary Vocabulary writing

QR Treasure hunt for teens

Another treasure hunt, but this time for older primary and teen learners that have a A2 level minimum and can read English reasonably well.

What you need

Print off the PDF at the end of this post and then cut up the QR codes. You can stick them around your class, school, playground… wherever you choose.

Each player or group will need a mobile phone that can scan QR codes. The codes are in text form, so an internet connection isn’t needed. I would do a test first though, to make sure your device works. If not, there are plenty of free QR reader apps that you can download.

How to play

Give each player, whether that be an individual student or group, one of the answer sheets and get them to put their name, or teamname on the sheet.

Write the start time on the sheet. This enables you to have staggered start times, if you wish.

Students can complete the questions in ANY order. They just scan a code and answer the question. Writing the answer on their sheet in the corresponding numbered space.

When they finish and return their sheet to you, write the finish time.

The winner completes all questions the quickest.

You can add time penalties of your choosing for spelling, wrong answers, etc. For example, I add 5 seconds for each misspelled word and if an answer is incorrect, I will add 20 seconds. This encourages players to put what they think are correct answers, rather than just filling in anything.

Download

Download a PDF of the QR Treasure hunt here : https://www.classroomgames.net/materials/treasure-hunt-2-qr.pdf

Categories
A1 A2 Adult B1 Games Materials Past Simple Present Perfect Primary Reading Secondary Speaking Uncategorised Vocabulary writing

Verbo! An irregular verbs card game based on Uno.

I developed this game to practise irregular verbs and help students learn which verbs go with which.

What to do

Download the printable PDF at the end of the page. Print it off and laminate it. There is a card reverse included in the PDF to print the cards double-sided.

How to play

Students are dealt 7 cards each to start, the rest are left in the centre of the table.

Just as with uno, a student must follow the top card with either a card from the same verb, or a card of the same colour. You could make it more challenging by getting students to define the verb, or use it in a sentence…

If a student can’t put a card down, they must pick one up.

If a student puts down a card from the wrong verb group, they must take it back and pick up two extra cards.

The +2, +4, change direction, change colour and miss-a-turn cards are all the same as the original version.

When the student has 1 card left, they have to shout ‘verbo!’ if they don’t before the next person takes a turn, they must pick up 4 cards.

Pick-up cards can accumulate, just as with Uno.

Download

Download the printable PDF here : https://classroomgames.net/product/verbo-an-irregular-verbs-card-game/

Categories
A1 Adult colors colours Games Infant numbers Primary Secondary Speaking Uncategorised Vocabulary

Jenga game adapted for the ESL classroom

Here’s a classic game that you can adapt and use to teach colours and numbers in the ESL/ESOL classroom. It’s fun too!

What is it?… Jenga!

I bought a colour jenga set that came with a colour dice, though you can just paint the blocks of a normal jenga. I then wrote numbers on both ends, so that they would be visible when stacked.

As normal dice will be used, it’s important that you only use combinations of numbers that use 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. It’s also a good idea to have more of the single numbers, as these come up more often… as will become apparent.

There are 60 blocks in total in my set. Here’s a full list of the numbers that it works best to use:

1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 11, 11, 12, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66.

If you have fewer blocks, then take out the doubles and triples.

How do you play it?

  • You will need 2 normal (1 to 6) dice.
  • Students throw both dice.
  • They can then remove a block from the tower, in the usual way that you play jenga, and place it on the top of the tower.
  • The difference is, they can only remove blocks that contain a combination of the numbers, or by adding or subtracting the numbers. For example, if they rolled a 4 and a 3, they could remove 4, 3, 43, 34, 4+3=7 or 4-3=1
  • As in the normal rules of Jenga, you cannot take a block from the top 3 rows at any point in the game and you can only use one hand (you can relax this rule if it’s smaller children playing).

If you get the students to say all the numbers they can use before they take a block, it works as a great way to practice double unit numbers in English. With smaller kids, it’s also a good way to practice simple maths.

That’s it! There are no downloads, but if you need a Jenga, you can get them off Amazon, Aliexpress, or pretty much any toy website. Here’s a 60-block one I found.

https://www.amazon.com/Mattys-Mix-Up-Colorful-Stacking-Storage/dp/B01MU0CYB7/

Here is a link to my TikTok video explaining how to play:

https://www.tiktok.com/@islaidiomas/video/7289537151707008289

Categories
A1 A2 Adult Back to School Games Materials Present Simple Primary Review Secondary Speaking

Back to school game for personal information

I have developed this game for my classes to have a fun way to review simple introduction questions.

I use a ball to review the questions with the class first. I pass the ball to a student and ask a question, they then have to answer it and then pass the ball to someone else before asking them the same question. This goes all round the class, until the ball come back to me. The last student asks me.

The questions are:

  • What’s your name?
  • How old are you?
  • Where do you live?
  • What’s your favourite food?
  • What’s your favourite sport?
  • What’s your favourite hobby?

You can also do another round where you throw the ball to one person and ask about a classmate…

  • What’s his name?… etc.

The game is played like happy families. Students ask each other closed questions to find a ‘family’ i.e. the name, age, location, favourite food, sport and hobby of one person. The first one to complete a person wins.

You can play in groups up to 8 people.

I deal 5 or 6 cards to start with and when a student gets a ‘no’ answer, they take a card from the pile of leftover cards and then the turn passes to the next student. This carries on until the cards run out in the pile.

If a student gets a ‘yes’ answer, they can ask again.

They can only ask for a card from a family they already have in their hand.

I design a lot of card games in this way, because the students know the rules instinctively and they are fun!

Download the PDF of the game here: https://classroomgames.net/product/introductions-card-game/

Print, laminate and cut out, then play! Let me know in the comments on my Tiktok account how you have used the game.

Categories
A1 A2 Games Materials Past Continuous Past Perfect Past Simple Present Continuous Present Simple Primary Secondary Speaking

Connect 4

This is a no preparation activity you can do to revise virtually any subject for controlled sentence formation practice with young learners, though I suppose if you wanted to, elementary adults might also like this game!

Materials

All you need is a whiteboard and markers in at least 2 different colours. If you havenet got access to a whiteboard, you could easily do it with a piece of paper and pens too.

How to play

Draw a grid on the board. Usually at least 6 squares accross and down, but more can be good for longer games. In this example, I played using the subject of animals and actions, so on the x-axis I selected some animals that had different abilities (flying, walking, swimming, etc.) and on the y-axis I put the actions (jump, run, swim, bite, etc). We were practicing can/can’t, so making sentences such as, “the crocodile can bite” or “the frog can’t fly”.

You could easily put body parts on the y-axis and use sentences with have/haven’t got (e.g. “the dog hasn’t got feathers”) or comparatives… put animals on both axes and write adjectives in the squares so they have to make a comparison between the animals using the adjective given (e.g. “the elephant is bigger than the snake”) or have them practise positive/negative/question forms… the possibilities are endless.

Students must make a sentence using the items on the axes that intersect on the square they want to win. If they give a correct sentence, they win the square.

Simple! You can play this game with groups from 2 upwards.

Why I use it

It works really well because it is fun, and the students practise controlled sentences with repetition to build confidence and better pronunciation too.

The best way to understand how this game works is to watch it in action on my Tiktok or instagram accounts, where I have posted a video of the activity in my own classroom.

Here is a link to the Tiktok video.

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