Everyone sits in a circle. One student
starts by saying ZIG and looks at another student.
That student now says ZAG while looking
at another student.
Now the third student says ZOP while
looking at another student and pointing to them with
a fully extended arm. Only ZOP has the arm motion. If
a student does not move their arm on ZOP he/she must
sit down.
For an advanced version – speed
it up. If a student hesitates he/she is out.
BALL TOSS
Requires a soft ball or a bean bag that
is easy to catch.
Ask students to stand in a circle
and one at a time toss the ball to each other.
They can choose the order, but everyone
should receive the ball only once.
The last person should throw the ball
back to the person who began the tossing.
Time them and see if they can do it
faster each time.
Try to break your “speed” record.
This game stresses teamwork and concentration.
SILENT LINE UP
Ask students to silently line up from
the youngest to the oldest.
They should not use any words, but
come up with other ways to figure out everyone’s
ages, i.e. hand signs.
If many students are the same age,
they will need to figure out how to find out birthdays – also
silently.
PIG DRAWING/ PARTNER MATCH-UP
Requires paper and pencil.
Say “When I tell you to begin,
I want you to draw a pig. You have 30 seconds – GO”
Time them for 30 seconds and then
ask them to put their pencils down.
Ask them to look around the room at
all the drawings and then partner-up with a person who
has drawn their pig in a similar way.
PARTNER INTRODUCTIONS
With your partner spend three minutes
talking to each other to find 3 things that you have
in common. Talk fast.
Time them for three minutes. (They
may come up with food, books, activities they both like,
sports they both play or they may have the same number
of brothers or sisters, etc)
When the time is up have them introduce
each other to the rest of the class and include the things
they had in common.
At the end, you may also observe the
things the whole class had in common or were very similar.
GAMES TO PLAY WITH GROUPS OF
STUDENTS
RING GAME
Requires a large circle of rope and
a ring.
Students form a circle sitting on
the floor/ground.
Each student puts both hands on a
large circle of rope.
One student stands in the middle.
The goal of the game is for the students
in the circle to pass the ring (passed through the rope)
around the circle using their hands and a rhythm so that
the person in the center doesn’t see where the
ring is.
Students can get a rhythm going by
counting “1..2, 1..2” “oooh, aaah” or “School
is cool”
As they are chanting, their hands
come together on one word and go out on the other and
they are passing the ring around the whole time.
Students should all practice this.
Choose one student to go to the center
and watch carefully. After a little while say “stop” and
the person in the middle tries to guess who has the ring.
They should have several tries.
At any point a new person can go to
the middle.
SPOONS CARD GAME
You need a deck of cards and some spoons
(plastics will do fine).
Students sit on the floor to play.
Deal 4 cards to each person.
Put enough spoons for each person
in the center of the circle – MINUS ONE
Everyone in the circle wants to collect
four of a kind.
The dealer takes a card from the top
of the remaining deck and decides whether or not to keep
it.
If the dealer wants to keep the card…they
choose another card from their hand to pass to the left.
The person to the right passes their
unwanted card to the person to their left (all the way
around the circle)
The dealer continues to draw from
the deck and pass on unwanted cards until someone gets
four of a kind.
As soon as someone has four of a kind,
they take a spoon (in a very unsuspecting way) from the
center of the circle.
When the rest of the group notices
a spoon is gone…everyone grabs a spoon…the
person who does not get a spoon gets an “S.”
If a person gets all the letters in
the word “SPOONS” they lose the game.
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