Pictionary!

Recently, we have used Pictionary to our advantage at almost every school/club at which we teach. For beginning students, we use basic nouns from the vocabulary they've been learning (shirt, pants, glasses, etc.). For more proficient students, we use other words, like "yesterday," "Easter," "walk," and "scared." We've found that the students tended to be a little timid at the offset of the game, but after the first brave souls ventured out, everybody got really into it!

We play this on teams. We often use teams for activities because it allows weaker students to work with stronger students, thus limiting the direct discouragement from personally failing at a task.

After playing several rounds of words that we provide, we have the teams come up with 3-5 of their own words. We then take each team's words and give them to the opposing team. The opposing team is given one of the words, two minutes are put on the clock, and the drawing/guessing begins. If the drawing team is able to correctly guess, they get a point. If they don't, the other team (the one that created the word) receives the point.

It's a hit so far.

Easter lesson

For our Easter lesson with our English club, we tried something a little adventurous. We wanted to make the lesson fun and meaningful at the same time, so we set up a scavenger hunt. It wasn't terribly difficult to set up, considering that most every aspect of life is more difficult than I ever expect!

Supplies:
1. colored balloons- preferably, a different color for each team. Be sure to get enough for all the clues, plus a couple extras just in case.
2. Strips of paper with location clues written on them
3. A print out of the Easter story for each group. Divide the story into paragraphs/ sections and cut those into strips.

Before blowing up the balloons, fold a clue and a portion of the story up for each balloon and stick them inside the balloon. Blow up the balloons and put them in the locations. Our last balloons led the students back to our classroom where they had to put their stories in order. They really liked this part!

Then, we had an activity sheet prepared for them. We interspersed comprehension questions with "language-y" questions. Comprehension questions: why did the people want Jesus to die? What was rolled in front of the tomb? "Language-y" questions: how many times is 'Jesus' written in this story? Count how many words start with the letter 'p.' Find a word with 4 vowels.

After they finished this activity, we asked deeper questions: what did you think was the most interesting part of the story? Why did Jesus choose to die? Why was it important for him to die?

After we finished this portion of the lesson, I told my story. I focused on how the Lord proved faithful and real to me, particularly when the tornado came through during my senior year of college and destroyed everything. Things went really well.

To finish up, we played a 2 minute list game. Theme? Easter.

Old idea...newish twist

This past week, we stumbled upon a great idea: Create-your-own-Charades.

We use our pre-determined (by us, whenever we think of them) charades ideas to get the ball rolling. We divide students into 3 groups (ideally). We go through a few rounds of those Charades. Then, each group writes their own scenario. We then switch the new scenarios around, and the students act out each other's scenes. Such a hit!

Zaccheus

Here's a favorite. This is a great one to use with kids but is also great with adults. It's a good opportunity to talk about how Jesus accepted and even sought out those who are different or who have never felt that they could belong.

Zacchaeus lived in a town called Jericho a long time ago. Nobody liked Zacchaeus very much mostly because he got rich taking money from other people and giving it to the Romans. Some of the money he gave to the Romans - but lots of it he kept for himself.

One bright, sunny day, Zacchaeus looked down the dirt road that came into Jericho and he saw a crowd of people coming his way. Everywhere Jesus went, people who were sick got better, people who couldn’t walk could walk again, people who were blind could see again. Everybody wanted to see Jesus, including Zacchaeus.

Zacchaeus ran up to the edge of the crowd and stood on his tiptoes to see what was happening. But he could not see anything. He tried to push his way through the crowd, but everyone wanted to see Jesus, and they wouldn’t let him through.

Then Zacchaeus turned around and saw a sycamore tree growing right beside the road Jesus was walking along. He ran on ahead and climbed up the Sycamore tree. Jesus stopped right under the sycamore tree and looked up, and there was Zacchaeus. “Zacchaeus!” Jesus said to him, “Hurry down from there! I must stay at your house today!”

But the people in the crowd were not so happy. They had spent all day in the hot sun following Jesus, and now he was going to stay at the house of Zacchaeus, a rich, cheating tax collector. “This man is a sinner!” one woman said. “He cheats and steals from his own people!” said an old man. “He isn’t good enough for Jesus to come and stay at his house!”

Zacchaeus heard what the people were saying about him, and he must have known that they were right. He wanted to make things right for Jesus and change. He no longer wanted to cheat people. So he said, “Listen! I will give half of everything I have to the poor! And if I cheated anyone, I will pay them back four times as much!”

Jesus said to Zacchaeus, “Today salvation has come to this house! Your life was all wrong, but now it is all right. You were lost, but now you have been saved!

That is why I am here. I came to find and save the lost!”

Vocabulary:

1. Romans –

2. Jericho –

3. crowd –

4. tiptoes –

5. Sycamore –

6. to cheat -

7. Tax collector –

8. salvation -

With kids, this is a good one to act out.

Two-Minute Lists

Confession: this game is a fall-back filler game. However, students tend to LOVE it. It doesn't matter what level speaker, they seem to really like this one.

Basic idea: students have 2 minutes to make a list of as many items as they can.

This is how we do it: divide the students into groups. You can do this individually, too, but in our experience, students are far more comfortable when working in groups. They will need a pen and piece of paper for each group. They will have 2 minutes to list as many items as they can that pertain to the topic you give them. Here are some of the topics we have used:
1. family words
2. animals
3. American movies
4. countries
5. Jobs that begin with the letter 'd' (you'd be surprised at what we've had students come up with!)
6. Vocabulary review- they list as many vocabulary words that they can remember from your class

We often do several of these listing games in a row. If the class likes competition, after each two-minute segment, have each team read off all of their words. Count how many they got and keep score. This seems to be quite motivational. :)

Stop the Bus

I'm not sure why this game has this name, but we use the concept pretty frequently. It doesn't require prep, so it's great to use on the fly.

Explain to the students that you will put several categories on the board (I usually use 4). Divide the students into groups. I often use the following categories: Adjective, Food, Animal, Place. Explain that you will write one letter on the board. Each team is to work as quickly as they can to come up with a word for each category. The words must start with the letter you have chosen.

Example: "B"
Adjective...beautiful
Food...bananas
Animal...bear
Place...Berlin

The first team to finish wins that round. Write their answers on the board. With groups that have a little more skill, once we have several letters and their accompanying words on the board, we ask the students to write a story of 3-5 sentences, using 5 or 6 of the words on the board. They usually enjoy that.