[JeremyinFrance]

It's a nice change for students to get up out of their seats and sit down again next to someone new. The usual one that teachers use is to get the students to arrange themselves in order of their birthdays, from January the 1st through to December 31st. I tried a variation on this with some adult students. I asked them to write down five words for states of drunkenness. Then to select one of those words that they think the others might not have thought of. Then they order themsleves in order of sobriety. A fun exercise, though not appropriate in certain parts of the world.
Jeremy

[Eric]

cool ideas.

i also use a game similar to this to practice ordinal numbers and times.

eric

[simplyesl]

I love the "seat swaper" game. I either give each student a number from 1-5 or animals. I'll randomely say "Switch seats _____." TPR works a treat, as well.

[mesmark]

I like that idea. It seems like nice movement and Ss can practice the question 'When's your birthday?' plus the answer a great number of times before they all end up in line.

Then at the end the teacher can ask the first S 'When's your birthday?' and then write the answer on the board. Then have the first student ask the second student and so on.

Bad news is this will only work one time if you're dealing with the same group, because they'll remember the order and just fall in line without asking the second time around. Maybe it could be done in smaller groups the second time around and then members shuffled for a third time. ??

[jenniferp]

One idea I found on another website giving a tip for rearranging your students into smaller groups was to cut up postcards (or any picture) into 4 or so pieces, dish them out and then the students had to match them up together, thus forming their group of 4. This would be a good idea to keep groups fresh (lots of my students refused to work outside of their little cliques no matter how much coercing)

As pictures are fine for younger students who don't yet have the reading capability you could also do this with parts of a sentence for older ones or adults. Could get some interesting variations on the original sentence....

[Pix]

Another idea that I have used is to number the desks and then have the students each pick out corresponding numbers from a hat and that is where they go. You can do the numeral on the desk and the written number "in the hat". Also, there is no reason for your numbers to go in order... use any numbers that you want. For variation, tape a picture to each desk and have the name of the picture in the hat. Or, use a picture of an action and have a form on the verb on the paper. Another idea would be to have the students find or draw a picture and then write the correct word on a sheet of paper for the "hat". Well, I could go on since the possibilities are great for a project like this. It helps with vocabulary and gets the students moving around at the same time.

[blue_eyed_kitty]

I've heard about a great ideato create pairs
You take few strings(half of the amount of students). You hold them in your hand in the middle and students come up and catch the ends. Then you let go and you can see how people are connected I've never tried it but it seems good idea

[jesci]

that's a good one. what i did lately was question and answer. i throw a question to a kid and if he/she gives the right answer i let her choose the place where he/she wants to sit. i used it once during revision time in class. its a good way of reviewing the kids. they enjoyed it!