[the Obscure]

I used to teach a class of Tibetan monks that were mostly first and second grade aged. They were absolutely crazy for the first few classes. I couldn't get them to be quite or pay attention. After about 5 minutes, they would get really fidgety and I couldn't do much to calm them down.

So, then for the first 5 to 10 minutes of class, I had them play a game to burn off some of their energy - stuff like tag, Simon Says (where Simon was always running and jumping and hardly ever standing still), duck duck goose, red light green light. (If your kids like songs, you could do something like the Hokey Pokey where they can dance around and shake.) Once they were a little tuckered out, I'd start class and they were much more well behaved.

I teach elementary school in Japan now, and my kids **love** learning new games. You could approach the games as a sort of cultural aspect of your lesson to introduce them to what games kids in other countries play.

During the part of class where you're teaching the new vocab, you could have them repeat in different types of voices. The kids will always try to mimic you, so you can talk in a weird voice or say the word really quietly and then have them gradually get louder and louder and then bring them back down to soft again. Whatever you can do to vary it a bit and make it seem more fun.