[klwolf]

Hi!

I just finished up my Halloween activities today, and am hoping to follow up this highly stimulating lesson with some games and activities that won't get a class of 30+ kindergartners too bonkers.

I was going to try Whispers for tomorrow, and some partner activities with the older kids. Other than that, I don't really have many calm-maybe-sit-down-in-a-chair-for-a-second games...

Any ideas?

[arielhud]

An old game my teacher used to make us play was this.... kids don't realize it's a ploy to get them to be still:

Seven students stand in front of the class. The rest of the students put their heads on their desks. The seven then move about and each touches a student. Once touched, a student sticks his or her thumb up. Then the seven say “heads up seven up!” The students who were touched then get a chance to guess which of the seven touched each of them. If they guessed right, they get to change places and be one of the students in the front.

Here’s another version

This one too is played inside a classroom. All the students put their heads down on their desks and extend one thumb. The teacher then secretly chooses one person as “It.” This person goes around touching the thumbs of six other people. If a person is touched, he or she goes to the front of the room. When this has been accomplished, “It” yells, “Seven up!” Everyone raises their heads and tries to guess which of the seven people is “It.”

30+ students is a lot of kids.... do you have TAs? I might have some ideas if you do, but if you're all on your own, most of the games I play with my own won't work.

[klwolf]

Thanks! That's a great idea. Closing their eyes usually brings everybody back to a quiet state, if at least for a bit.

I do have TA's in almost all of my classes. For the ones that aren't, the kindy teachers that are there are always super helpful, even if they don't speak English. I would love to hear about any other suggestions you might have!

[arielhud]

Haha, no worries. It's good to hear you have TAs. The max of kids in my classes are 6 (sometimes 7 when there's a scheduling error) and I don't have TAs, so I can't imagine handling so many all at once. X_X

Other ideas might include:

Have everyone sit in their desks or in a circle with their hands palm up on their knees. Have one child start with "A" and the child behind them (if in desks) say "B" and so on. If they are sitting in a circle, have them say "A" and then touch the hand of the next person, who then says "B" and touches the next person, and so on. For more of a challenge, you can have them do the ABCs backwards, or saying "A, /a/" "B /b/" "C /k/" etc.

Again in a circle formation, you can play "Duck Duck Goose". You choose who will be the "Goose". This person stands up and goes around the circle, touching the heads of their classmates one at a time, saying "Duck", "Duck", "Duck"..... until they decide on a Goose and yell "Goose!" This instigates a chase between the person who is the goose and who might continue to be the Goose. If the chosen child catches the Goose before they make a full circle and sit in the open space, the Goose must go around again (I ignore this rule as some kids are slower than others and it can hurt their esteem to have to repeat).

The last game I can think of at the moment is "I Spy" Have the kids sit down and play the game by starting with "I spy something (color). It is (adjective) and (adjective). What is it?" Of course it can work with more simple grammar too, if you don't mind them out of their desks to run around trying to find what you're looking at that's "red" or "blue", etc.

Hope these help!

[arielhud]

Also, my roommate just reminded me of this game: Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar? - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It requires teaching some grammar, but it's a fun game, especially if you have a toy cookie to hide in someone desk or to hand them in secret!