here's a silly but fun activity that worked well with my eighth and ninth form classes. it's called "the animal game." it works best with eight to twelve kids. i think it would be great for smaller kids, but even the junior high ages ones liked it, once they got in a silly enough mood.
1) have the kids in the class all think of at least one animal the makes a noise.
2) have them say what noise the animal makes in russian/ukrianian, then tell them what noise it makes in english (sometimes it's really different...be sure to talk about roosters). write all the animals and the sound they make on the board.
3) sit in a circle (as best as you can manage).
4) have each kid choose one of the animals on the board.
5) each kid has to make up an action for the animal, to go along with the sound. (like, for a cow, you can say "moooooo" and make horns on your head).
6) here's the game: one person (probably the teacher, to start), is #1. everyone else in the circle is #2, #3, and so on. the object is to get to #1.
7)#1 starts, does his sound and action, then does another. then, the person whose sound he does does her sound and action, and another animal's sound and action.
8)then that person does his sound and action and another animal's sound and action. they have to do the sound/action really fast...if a student pauses for even a second, he goes back to the last chair, and everyone else moves up.
the real point of the game is just to be silly. it's pretty funny when everyone is ribbiting like a frog and doing monkey grunts, neighing like a horse, and so on, along with the action.
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