hogs and tractors

Participants split in pairs. One of them thinks of the animal sound, another - of the machine sound. After each pair has came up with their sounds, everyone closes their eyes and mixes in the room. The goal of the game is to find each other by making your sounds. 

broken phone

The people stand in chain. The person in the end of the chain begins the game by whispering some phrase to his neighbour. The neighbour than has to whisper the phrase to the next person and so on. The people have to pass the phrase as quickly as possible. The last person has to say it aloud. Usually by the end of the chain the phrase is completely different.

can't stop

This is a variation of a board game of the same name where 2 teams race to reach the top first. I use this game a lot for phonics practice but it can be used for anything. Draw two vertical paths of 8-12 squares each and draw a big circle with a prize at the top. Place a magnet for each team at the bottom of the paths. If team 1 goes first ask 5 students from that team to stand. ask a question and the student who raises his hand may answer. If correct, then his team's magnet goes up one square and he\she sits down leaving 4 students standing. Ask these students: Do you want to stop? If they answer yes then draw a line under their magnet and they can't fall bellow it but their turn is over. If they answer "No" then ask another question but if they get it wrong they fall all the way to the bottom or to the last place they stopped. You must ask "Do you want to stop?" after every correct response. At first teams will try to race to the top without stopping but soon discover its very hard to answer 12 consecutive questions without any mistakes and thus always plunge back to the bottom.

blow that fish

Two teams stand on the opposite sides of the table. In the middle of the table is a paper fish figure. The teacher asks the question and the first team to answer it correctly gets the right to blow. After that the questions continue. The team that is able to move their fish to the end of the table wins the game.

cowboys

This is a great warm up game suitable to many fluency levels, ages and target vocabulary types. It also requires no resources and encourages quick thinking. The game can be made as hard or easy as you wish. 

The teacher is the cowboy in the centre of the circle. Teacher makes a gun shape with their hand. Teacher points to a student (shoots them) and says the target vocab. This student ducks and the Students on either side of them must shoot each other with the answer. The first to say the vocab correctly wins, whilst the second is out. E.g.: teacher points to a student and says "yes." Students on either side of the targeted student point to each other and say "NO!" - practicing ontonims.

The teacher can control the game so the remaining two students are from opposing teams. When down to two students, they stand back to back and walk away from each other until teacher says the vocab (Ie: In opposites bang teacher says: "One, Two, Three, Four, Yesterday!". Students turn around and shoot each other after four steps saying "Tomorrow!"). 

who am i?

The students seat in a circle. Each student has a card with a person/animal/object on his forehead. He doesnt see the card, but everyone else does. The person must guess what is written on the card by asking a yes/no questions. If he asks a question and receives the answer “yes”, than he can ask another question. If the answer is “no” than its the next person’s turn.

It also fun, if all the cards are written by the students to each other. 

battleships

Make 2 grids and lable the columns from eg. A-M and the lines from 1-13.

Let the students "hide" 10-12 words in one of these grids (using words from previous lessons, or ones you like to practise). The words should not touch and be written across or down. Now by taking turns, each student tries to "shoot" words, by asking for eg. A8. If he has a hit he can go on guessing, if not the other one tries. Winner is the one who found all the words first. (the second grid is for the own shots).

scavengers

This game is a wonderful warm up for practising prepositions while incorporating already learned vocabulary, though it takes some preparation, either before class or when the children are told to shut their eyes. I write on little slips of paper and hide them around the classroom.

One leads to another. example: ' Look under the waste bin', where the children find a slip that says,'on the teacher's desk' where they find a slip with,' beside the restroom door' or,' in front of the computer'. Inevitably the children read these instructions outloud. If they have difficulty understanding the directions I have them ask me," How do you say ' in front of the computer' in Italian?". At the end of the hunt I write a note saying 'Congratulations, You Win!!!' They are crazy for this game.

empires

Give each student a small piece of paper, about the size of your thumb. Ask them to write down their favourite animal, sport, month, cartoon character, whatever. Collect the paper, write all entries on the blackboard (makes things a lot faster). The object is to try to guess what the student wrote by asking “James, is your favourite month July?”. If James responds yes, then he becomes apart of your empire, and you ask someone else. Cross that month off the board. If James responds no, then it is his turn to ask anyone in the class to attempt to build his empire. If, for example James acquires an empire of 3 students, and you guess that James' favourite cartoon character is Stewie, for example, then you acquire him and his empire. The game ends when a student has everyone in his empire. 

dog vs ninja

All that you need for this is a stack of index cards, each with the name of possible combatant written on it. For example: samurai, tiger, battleship, pro-wrestler, ninja. Make at least 30 or 40 cards.

Shuffle the cards and choose two, then ask your students who would win a fight between the two combatants named. The idea here is to get your students talking and, if possible, speculating. Ask them why they think this or that fighter would win. Is he / she stronger, larger, or faster, than the vanquished foe?

As always, its good to add a few comedy entries in the list of fighters. How would "the smallest dog in Osaka" fare against a bull? How about Tom Cruise vs. a chicken? Godzilla vs. Madonna? Ichiro vs. an army tank? You can also add the names of students - this always gets a laugh, and can cause animated debates among your kids.

The great thing about this format is that it can always be randomized, simply by re-shuffling the deck.

hit the head

Everyone takes a piece of white paper and writes one word on it, so everyone else can read it. The people then sit in the circle and hold their papers in front of them. One person stands in the middle and has a paper tube in his hand. Someone starts the game by saying one of the words from the circle. The middle person has to find the person holding that word and hit him/her on the head with a tube. To avoid being hit the person must "redirect" the tube by calling out some other word from the circle. If you have been hit, you become the middle person.

bodyparts

The facilitator ask everyone to find a partner, shake his hand and introduce yourself. After that he ask to change partners and repeat the procedure, but this time instead of shaking hands they should shake legs. The activity continues for a while and each time the participants have to greet each other by shaking different bodyparts.

snowballs

Each participant is given a piece of white paper (preferably A4) and asked to write something on in - a name, a hobby, favourite food etc. (depends on the task). After everyone has finished, the facilitator forms his piece of paper into a snowball and starts a snowball fight. After 2-3 minutes the fighting stops and everyone are asked to take one snowball in their hand. They now have a piece of information about another participant and can use it to start a conversation or make an introduction.

This activity can also be used to divide the group into teams.

threads

This activity is good for dividing the group into pairs. The facilitator takes a number of threads equal to half group size (e.g. 5 threads for 10 people). He holds all threads in his fist so that the participants only see the ends of the threads and don't see which end belongs to which thread. The facilitator then asks each participant to take one end of the thread. After everybody did so, he uncleanches the fist and each pair is connected by a single thread.