Pictionary Riddles

Level: Medium

Materials: White board, dry erase markers

Activity: Separate class into two teams. Choose one student to come up and draw a picture while you read out clues. The class must work within their teams to guess what the child at the front is drawing. They must also listen to your clues, because the child's drawing may be misleading!

Example:

Who am I?

• Most people don't like me.
• I am green.
• I have no arms. 
• I have no legs. 
• I can't swim. 
• I can't fly. 

Fly Swatter Memory Game with Flashcards

Level: Low-Medium

Materials: Plastic fly swatter and magnetic flash cards

Activity:

Align flash cards on magnetic white board. Ask two students to come up and have students hit one card and say the name, ie, "pencil." Second student must hit the first card and pick a second card, ie: "pencil, table." Students must remember the order of the pictures and add a new card for each turn until one student forgets the order of the cards.

This is a great memory game that will help your students learn vocabulary quickly and have a great time while they're doing it!

ESL Flashcard Game: What's Different?

Level: Medium-High English

Materials: Objects, or Picture Flashcards

Objective: Teach students to compare and contrast in English. 
Activity: Set two objects or flashcards side by side and ask children to name one thing that the items have in common and one thing that is different.

Example:

What's different? An Apple is red. A watermelon is green (outside). Inside, an apple is white and a watermelon is red. 

What's the same? The both have black seeds. They're both fruits. 

Students really enjoy this game because it often appears simple but students can come up with some complex responses which will make it interesting for teachers as well!  

ESL Vocabulary Game: Around the World

Level: Kinder / Elementary /Middle School / High School

Materials: Vocabulary Flashcards (pictures or words)

Activity:

Choose two students to come up to the front of the class. Show both a flashcard of a word or picture. The first student who says the word first is the winner. Call up a new second student to compete against the reigning champion. The object of the game is to find one student who can beat every student in the class (time permitting).

Simple ESL Grammar Game

Level: Kindergarten/Elementary/High School/ Adult

Materials: Board marker, white board

Activity:

Before class, write down several sentences that follow sentence patterns students are currently studying.  Write the words of one sentence out of order on the board, ex:

Jenna / plays /  tennis / with / her mom

Becomes-->

plays / her mom / Jenna / with / tennis

In pairs or teams, have students unscramble the sentences. Assign points to students who unscramble their sentences first.