This section contains a variety of games under the follow headings:
Numbers Games
Clothes Pins Game
Dice Game
Games with Objects
What Do You Want?
Do You Want?
What Do You Have?
Go Get!
Games for specific lessons
Where is your hand?
Where is the monkey?
Stand up!
What can you do?
Number Games
Clothes Pins Game
Materials: Miniature clothes pins, cups, and an egg timer
Paricipants: Two or more students
TEACHER: Scatter clothes pins on the table. Each student gets one clothes pin to use to pick up other clothes pins, and a cup to put clothes pins into.
To start the game, flip the egg timer. Students race to see how many clothes pins they can get into their cups before the egg timer runs out. Students may only pick up the scattered clothes pins with their clothes pin.
When the timer finishes, have the students COUNT OUT LOUD the number of clothes pins in their cup.
Variation: You can split the students up into teams. Each team of students has their own cup. The team with the most clothes pins at the end of the time wins!
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Dice Game
Materials: Two dice
Participants: Student by student, or as a group
TEACHER: Roll two dice. Have student(s) call out the sum of the two numbers on the dice. Do this over and over. This is a simple game for teaching numbers.
Variation: This game also works with only one die, or with three dice.
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Games with Objects
What Do You Want? Game
Materials: A set of objects (such as vegetables and fruit), and two baskets
Participants: As many students as you want
TEACHER: Have the students sit in a circle, or any grouping that is easy for you to walk around to each of them. Then, take a set of objects and put them in a basket.
(Example of a set of objects: A set of plastic fruit and vegetables toys work great for this game. Make sure that the students can easily see the objects and will be able to say what it is they want.)
Go to the first student. Ask the first student, "What do you want?" and offer him or her the objects. The student then says, "I want the [apple]!" As soon as the student says what they want, give the object to the student. Go around the circle and let everyone pick what they want.
NOTE: A lot of students will simply take what they want (or only say the name of what they want) without putting it into a sentence. This is OK at first. But ideally, you want to have the students actually say the sentence, "I want the apple!" before you give them the apple. Students may not do this all the time, and that's OK. Help the students if they are struggling to remember what an object is called. You can give them choices, or even give the answer if you need to.
Once every student has at least one object, you can do one of two things. You can either play the What Do You Have? Game, or you can end the game by having students give their objects back. A good way to do this is to take a big basket and have students throw their objects into the basket. (Of course, if you are using breakable objects, have the students give them to you rather than throwing them in the basket).
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Do You Want? Game
Materials: A set of objects (such as vegetables and fruit), and two baskets
Participants: As many students as you want
This game is a similar to the What Do You Want? Game. Both games start the same and have similar purposes.
TEACHER: Have the students sit in a circle. Put objects in the basket, and go to the first student. Instead of asking students what they want, offer the student specific objects. Do you want the banana? Students have the option to say yes or no. If the student says yes, give them the object. If the student says no, you can either offer them another object OR go on to the next student.
Giving students a choice creates some interesting dynamics. Usually there are some objects that students want more than others. So if the first object you offer is one the don't want, they have the opportunity to say no and hope for something else. But if they say no, they may not get an object at all!
At this point, you can either play the What Do You Have? Game, or you can end the game by having the students throw their objects into a basket.
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What Do You Have? Game
Materials: A set of objects (such as vegetables and fruit)
Participants: As many students as you want
TEACHER: Give each student one or more objects. Then go to each student and ask the question, "What do you have?" Students respond by naming the object(s) they have.
Ideally, the students should answer in sentence form: I have a [peach]. Don't worry if students don't say this at first, but aim for this response.
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Go Get! Game
Materials: A set of objects (such as vegetables and fruit), and a basket
Participants: Teacher and one student at a time
TEACHER: Scatter objects on the floor at one end of the room. Have the students gather at the other end of the room. Then, tell a student to "Go Get!" an object. ("Go get the apple!") The student goes and gets the object, and brings it back to you. It works well to have a basket that the students can put the objects into.
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Game for specific lessons
lesson: your body
Where Is Your Hand? Game
Materials: None
Participants: Whole class, or student by student
TEACHER: Ask questions like "Where's your hand?" "Where's your elbow?" "Where is nose?" The students respond by touching or pointing to this part of their body. Keep asking the questions until students can respond quickly and confidently.
Variations: Have students ask the teacher the questions, and the teacher has to do the actions.
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lesson: where is the tiger?
Where Is The Monkey? Game --
Materials: Flashcard sheet for Where is the Tiger? lesson
Participants: Student by student
TEACHER: Hold up a flashcard sheet to the first student. Choose one of the flashcard choices on the sheet and ask the student where this picture is. "Where is the Monkey?" "Where is the Tiger?" Students respond by pointing to this picture on the sheet. If they point to the wrong one, let them try again until they choose the right one.
Variation: The teacher asks the first student, and then that student asks the next student. Students sit in a circle.
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lesson: what is he doing/what is the boy doing
Stand Up! Game
Materials: None
Participants: Student by student, or as a group
TEACHER: Shout out different actions. "Stand Up!" "Sit Down!" "Jump!" The students respond by doing the actions.
Variations: The students say the commands and the teacher does the actions.
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lesson: can you ride a bike
What Can You Do? Game
Materials: Chairs, "Can You..." flashcards
Participants: 5 or more students
TEACHER: Have the students sit in chairs in a circle. There should be the same number of chairs as there are students. Read off one of the "Can You...?" flashcards. If the students are able to do this action (or wants to do it), they need to get up and exchange chairs. Sit down in an empty seat with the students, so that one of the students doesn't get a seat. That student has to read the next "Can You...?" flashcard. And the game continues.
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