Chose your corner

Take 4 or 5 cards and put them in the corners of the room. Play music and get the kids to dance for a bit. When the music stops they choose a corner. Have the same pictures on smaller cards, draw one at random and say it out loud.  The kids in that corner are eliminated. As the number of kids decreases remove a picture and so on until 1 lucky kid is the winner.

Daruma san

Say a command (eg: touch red), lean up against the wall covering your eyes, count out loud to three and then try to catch as many students as possible who haven't done the instruction. The last student not out wins.

Blindman

This is like reverse charades.  The player puts a card on their forehead without looking at what it is.  The other players act out (or give hints for older kids) about what the card is.  The player has to guess in English.  Use a timer to put some pressure on and if they guess within the time they get to keep the card and another player comes.

Spin, spin, spin

Put flashcards in a circle so their edges are touching.  On a coin, use tape to make an arrow.  The first player (or team representative) stands in the center* and spins the coin.  When the coin falls, wherever the arrow is pointing the player must say that card (or make a sentence).  If they are right, the can put their counter on card.  Then the next player tries.  The team or player with the most counters on cards at the end wins.  You can also give them counters to get rid of and the first team to put them all on cards wins.  This version is harder to control time wise, but is more exciting.  You can also have other players' counters removed if the same card comes up.

*it still works on a table if it is a small group.

What's Gone

A very simple game.  Put the flash cards on the table, then remove one when the students have their eyes closed.  The first person to say what's gone gets to remove the next card.  Try removing two or three for a challenge.

Gokiburi Game

All the kids start out as cockroaches (gokiburi).  The do an action to show that is what they are.  They find another cockroach and do rock, scissors, paper and a set dialogue.  The winner then becomes a snake.  Only snakes can talk to snakes and only cockroaches can talk to cockroaches.  The snakes then become mice when they win, then birds, then rabbits, then tigers (any animals the kids know is ok as long as it becomes bigger).  In the end they become human and do rock, scissors, paper with the teacher.  You may need to become a cockroach from time to time to help out the kids that are bad at rock, scissors, paper.

Janken Battle

Put 10 or more cards on the table or on the floor.  The kids line up in teams at either end of the cards.  When you say go, they move along the line saying the words out loud.  When they meet they do "rock, scissors, paper" and the winner stays where they are and the loser goes to the back of their team and the next team member starts from the beginning of the cards.  Continue until a team gets to the opposite end.

What's your name?

A good way to practice things like 'Hello, my name is.... What's your name?', is to put a timer in a box. Everyone sits in a circle, and one person is given the box. That person says to the next person, "My name is X. What's your name?" and then hands the box to the person, the mini-conversation continues until the timer goes off. It's always funny to the see the face of the person when the timer goes off in their hand! Practice it first without the timer on, so everyone knows how to say it, then do it with the time for 2 minutes, then 1 minute. It gets them talking really fast!  You could have kids that have the timer when it goes off be out, but it might end in tears.

Ladders

Have the kids sit in a line in pairs with their feet touching so they make a kind of obstacle course.  Give each student a vocab card that will come up in a story (both people in the pair have the same card).

You read a story and when they hear their word they have to stand up and race their partner over the other kids legs, around the outside to the start of the line, then back to their place.  There is no winner, they just keep running and listening for their word.

Ochita Ochita

Pre-teach a set of vocabulary words with gestures to match each word.

The caller says "Ochita Ochita" (or for older kids make an English eqivelant "here it comes, here it comes" or something). The players then chorus "nani ga ochita" ("what is?"). The caller then shouts a vocabulary word. Players do the action for each vocabulary word as fast as they can. If players perform the wrong action or take too long to figure it out, they're out of the game.

After a few rounds begin stringing words together with "and" and making students perform multiple actions at once or switch between them quickly.

In, On, Out

A great game for prepositions is give the kids a paper cup and a marble each. They put it on the cup and say on, then using one hand, flip the cup over and get the marble "in", then drop it "out" into the other hand. They love trying to get the hang of it and is a great excuse to teach "I did it!". They will also think you are amazing cause you can do it first time.

Alternative Duck, Duck, Goose

The kids sit in a cirle.  I have weather cards, but anything is ok, and they say what I show them and when I say "sunny" (or another key word) they have to run around the circle back to their spot and I chase them.  If they are caught they become the person who shows the cards.

Body Draw

Teach body parts, then we do big/small, long/short using hand gestures and practice big/small jumps, long/short steps to reinforce. 

Then draw a body on the board by getting them to shout out whether they want a big or small head, long or short neck etc. They get really into it and shout out the English to get their choice drawn and you end up with a crazy looking picture.

Pairs for big classes

The game is just concentration, I have 20 pieces of A4 colored construction paper, numbered 1-20. I will have 10 pictures repeated twice on the opposite side. I put up the 20 pieces of A4 on the blackboard and then divide the kids into 2 groups.  Bring up one student from each team, they janken and the winner has to chose two numbers and say them in English (ie 5 and 17 please). I turn over those 2 numbers, if they are the same, the team gets 1 point, then the other student picks two numbers. Keep bringing up pairs of students and playing the games until all pictures have been matched up.