Primary Game Ideas
Continued Game Ideas
Chain drawings Give each student a piece of paper and some coloured pencils. Tell them that you are going to play some music and you want them to draw whatever comes into their heads. As music is playing, all students should be drawing. After 20 or 30 seconds, stop the music. Students stop drawing and pass their picture to the person to the left of them in the circle. Play the music again and they continue with the drawing the person next to them had started. Stop the music again, pass pictures on and this continues until the end of the song. When you have finished each student will have a picture that several students contributed to. Then it's up to you what to do with the pictures. They can be used to describe to the group, to write a story about, or to pretend they were a dream the student had last night. The rest of the class can try to analyse the meaning of the dream. Use different types of music to get different types of pictures. I've found that reggae and samba produce happy beach scenes and dance music gets futuristic city scenes! If you want to 'force' the pictures towards a topic you are studying, ask some questions about the topic first and get students into thinking about the theme. Beware - with teenagers this activity can be quite an eye-opener as it tends to reveal what is going on in their minds!
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Primary Game Ideas One word stories
For higher-level groups this can be really fun. Each student adds a word to create a group story. The teacher can begin by saying the first word and in a circle each student adds the next word, without repeating what has come beforehand. Good starting words are "Suddenly" or "Yesterday" to force the story into the past tense. It is great for highlighting word collocations and practising word order. The stories can develop in any number of ways. Some groups may need the teacher to provide punctuation and decide that the sentence should end and a new one should begin. Picture consequences Each student needs a piece of paper and a pencil. Make sure students have their paper in portrait (not landscape) and ask students to draw a hat at the top in the middle. When they have finished they should draw two short lines to show where the head begins and then fold over the paper leaving only the two short lines showing. Students then pass the folded paper to their right and the teacher instructs them to draw a face and neck. Students fold, leaving the two lines of the neck peeping out from the fold. Instruct students to draw the body, to the waist. Fold and pass as before. Then they draw to the knees, then fold and pass, then to the feet. It's important to tell students not to cheat and peep at the folded part of the body. That will spoil the fun! Students then unfold the paper and reveal the misfit type character they have created between them.
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Primary Game Ideas Use the pictures to practice describing people, revise clothes vocabulary or to create role plays. Written consequences
Similar to picture consequences in the way the activity is conducted but this one creates a story. At each stage, before folding and passing to the student on the right, give these instructions. Write the name of a man. It can be a famous man or a man everyone in the class knows. (Depending on the group, allow them to put the names of class mates) Write the name of a woman. It can be a famous woman or a woman everyone in the class knows. (Depending on the group, allow them to put the names of class mates) Write the name of a place where the two people meet. When they meet, he says something to her. What does he say? Students write what he says to her. She replies to the man. What does she say? What's the consequence of this encounter? What happens? What's the opinion of the whole story. What does the world say as a comment? The end result is a mixed up story that can often be amusing. Read yours as an example of how you want the students to tell the story. Then invite students one by one to unfold their stories and read them to the group. Depending on the level you can encourage use of connectors, reported speech etc. 3
Primary Game Ideas Master Master, Who Am I? You need a blindfold for this one. Blindfold a volunteer. A pupil selected by you must approach them quietly, disguise their voice and ask Master Master, Who Am I? If the volunteer guesses correctly, they get another go. If they are wrong, the successful “voice” gets a turn The Ministers Cat This is an alphabetical word game. Everyone gets in a circle and claps hands to the beat. Start with A. Example: "The ministers cat is an Angry Cat", "the ministers cat is a Black cat" etc etc. Cross The Circle Everyone is numbered around the circle as 1,2,3. hen you call their number, everyone must cross the circle in role as…..a ballerina……….a panther………a moonwalker……..someone who’s stuck in the mud……..a fashion model……whatever you can think of. Shazam This is like Scissors, Paper Stone but played by a whole group. You divide the class into two. I usually play this after a partner activity and send the As one way and the Bs another. The group must secretly decide whether they are Knights, Giants or Wizards. Knight beats Wizard Giant beats Knight Wizard beats Giant The group confer secretly and come forward to face the other group. You count one two three and the groups simultaneously make the appropriate noise and action. 4
Primary Game Ideas The wizards brandish an imaginary wand and shout “Shazam!” The giants stamp their feet and say “ Fee, fi, foe fum” The knights draw their swords and shout, ”en garde” It’s often a draw. I usually play best of three
Colonial Circle Players: Small to medium groups This is a very old game from the colonial days
One player will be the chosen British spy and all other players will be in a circle formation holding hands, facing inward. The spy will request to enter the circle by saying, “Please good people let me in so I can warm my toes and light my pipe”. The players will allow that person to come into the circle. That player will enter and stand in the centre of the circle. He will act out that he is warming his toes and lighting his pipe by saying “Ah, it’s great to be able to light my pipe and it’s great to warm my toes”. As he's doing so, he’ll figure out a way out of the circle and then suddenly try to escape through one set of players locked arms. If captured he picks a new spy and the original spy has to sit in the centre. If he escapes he picks a new spy to come back and spy with him. When they try to escape, they will exit at different locations in the circle. Do You Love Your Neighbor? Players: Small to medium groups Game of the Month 4/00
All players sit in a circle except one person who sits on someone’s lap and asks, “Do you love your neighbour?” If he/she says YES, you all move one seat in any direction and the person that’s IT try’s to get a seat. If he/she does, then the person left standing is IT. However if he says NO then the IT asks, “Who do you love?” The person that was chosen then answers with a physical trait of other people in the circle (ex. glasses, shoes, hair colour, and style of cloths) and those people move to any seat they can get except for there own.
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Primary Game Ideas Ducks N Hens Required: Two objects Players: Small to medium groups Game of the Month 11/02
Circle up in groups of 8-10. Hand one person two random objects. One of these random objects represents a duck, the other represents a hen. The person is a “vendor”. His goal is to sell the foul. To his right, he passes the first item, and says, “Do you want to buy a duck?” The “buyer” says, “Does it quack?” The vendor says, “Yes it quacks.” The duck continues to be passed to the right with the question and answer session going all the way back to the original vendor and back to the current transaction. (B asks A, A answers B, B sells to C, C asks B, B must turn around and ask A, A answers B, B answers C, C sells to D, D asks C, C asks B, B asks A, A answers B, B answers C, C answers D, and so on.) In the meantime, immediately after the duck is sold, the original vendor turns to his left with the hen, and says, “Do you want to buy a hen?” The buyer asks, “Does it cackle?” “Yes it cackles.” Same deal with the hen... the question and answer session goes all the way back to the original vendor. The fun comes when the messages start to cross. It’s hilarious! Submitted by Merry Mary
Pass the Parcel Players: Small to medium groups Game of the Month 8/03
Wrap a bar of chocolate (or some other exciting gift) in a small box then wrap in a layer of paper. Now on the paper write a type of task that must be completed. Add another layer of paper and another task. Repeat until you have about 10 layers. Finally wrap it in gift paper (so it looks nice). The tasks should vary - like sing a song, eat a teaspoon of mustard, or walk blindfolded to the other side of the circle. Just try to be creative and make it so that they won’t want to get stuck with the package on the next turn. Sit everyone in a circle and play a short snippet of music. When the music stops, the person holding the parcel removes one layer of wrapping and
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Primary Game Ideas must perform the task written on that layer. Repeat until the last layer of wrapping has been removed. At the end, no one will want to get stuck with the package but the one that does will get the reward. Pirate Required: Large bunch of keys and blindfold Players: Small to medium groups Choose one player to be the pirate. That player will be required to sit in the middle of the circle, blindfolded with his/her legs crossed. All the other players will circle the pirate while sitting with their legs crossed. Place several different rings of keys on the floor in front of the pirate. A player is nominated to slowly creep up, attempt to take a ring of keys and then return to their place without the pirate hearing them. The Pirate has three tries to point to where he thinks the thief is. If the thief succeeds, he/she becomes the new Pirate. Smile Toss Players: Four to Twelve players Players can sit in circle or through out the room as long as everyone can see each other. All players are to keep a straight somber face while one person that is chosen to be the Smile Tosser, smiles. The Smile Tosser will smile a big smile at all players trying to get them to crack a smile or laugh. If anyone smiles or laughs they are out of the game and they must be absolutely quiet while the game goes on. The Smile Tosser can wipe off his smile with his hand and throw it to another player if he wishes. The receiving player will put on the smile and be the new Smile Tosser. You can even set a time limit on how long your Smile Tosser is allowed to keep his role. Smile Toss is a great party game, holiday get together game, icebreaker game and youth group game.
Assassin This is a game best played in a large group. We always played it with the 610 year olds at our summer camp. Sit all of the children in a circle, with legs
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Primary Game Ideas crossed. Have all children put their heads down. one person (we always had at least one adult present) would walk around the circle and tap one child on the head. This person was the assassin. The child "kills" all other players by winking at them. If you are winked at, silently count to 10, then put your feet in the middle of the circle. We always had a few drama queens who would act as if they really had been shot, and clutch their chest, and shake and scream. very funny. if the assassin kills everyone, then they win. they can be "witnessed" as well. if you think you know who the killer is, before you get winked at, you can say you have a suspect. Such as "I suspect that Sally is the assassin" if someone seconds it (agrees with you) then sally either comes clean. if sally is not the assassin, then the accusers are dead to. A less brutal version is the sandman. same thing, except being winked at means you take a nap. Baby, if you love me, smile A.K.A. Quaker Meeting Players form a circle with one player in the middle (it). The middle person must approach players in the circle and ask, "Honey, do you love me?" The person being questioned must answer, "Honey, I love you but I just can't smile." If s/he does smile or laugh, s/he becomes "it" and the previous middle person joins the circle. The person who is "it" is not allowed to touch other players but may make as many funny faces as s/he wishes. OR (Baby if you love me smile) The same as above except that you say "Baby, if you love me, smile", and the other person answers "Baby, I love you, but I just can't smile". In this version players are allowed limited touching (sitting on lap, tickling neck, etc). For a slightly older, nearly pubescent age group.
Sausages Everyone sits in a circle. The person who is it stands in the center of the circle. Each person asks the person who is "it" an appropriate question. The
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Primary Game Ideas only answer to every question can be sausage. The first person to make the center person laugh wins a try in the middle. Ex: What color is your hair? Sausage. What do you brush your teeth with? Sausage. (Obviously other words can be used for variety)
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