No-Prep Games
(Good for warm-up, closing and as a time filler)
Young Learners (5th-7th Form)
Preposition Art
Each student begins with a blank piece of paper. Tell them to draw something in the
middle of the page. (A table works well for the first object.) Then give them
instructions to complete a pictures. (A cat under the table, a chair near the table.
Book on the chair. A picture on the wall above the table, a vase on the table, flowers
in the vase.) Continue until most of the page is full, and compare pictures. Students
can also take turns giving instructions.
Monster Laboratory
(Good for reviewing body parts.) Similar to Preposition Art, but with body parts.
(Draw two heads in the middle of the page. Two necks. Seven eyes. One body. Six
arms and hands. Fourteen Fingers. Four Noses…) Compare pictures.
Ring, Ring, Who Has My Ring?
Choose a student to begin. This student steps out of the room. Hand a ring to another
student. All students in the classroom should see who receives the ring. Call student
to return to class. He or she must try to guess who has the ring by asking various
classmates ten or fewer yes/no questions.
Dima, does a girl have the ring?
Yulia, is the person who has the ring wearing tennis shoes?
Bogdan, is the person who has the ring older than me?
Vika, is the person who has the ring wearing something blue?
Marina, was the person who has the ring late to class?
If the student guesses correctly, he or she gets another turn (limit three). If the
student guesses incorrectly, the student who has the ring becomes the next
Sing a Song
Don’t worry, you are miles away from anyone who will mock you and kids love it. Try:
If You’re Happy and You Know It; Home on the Range; You Are My Sunshine; Darling
Clementine; Early Beatles Songs; Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star; Row, Row, Row Your
Boat…
Older Learners (8th-11th Form)
Agree/Disagree
Write “Agree,” “Disagree,” and “Undecided” across the board. Say statements about
the topic being studied and (individually) ask students to stand by the word that
represents their opinion. Ask reasons for their opinions. (For more advanced pupils,
divide the class and ask them to debate.)
Who am I?
Put a chair in the from of the classroom, facing the students and not facing the
blackboard. Have a student sit in the chair and write the name of a famous person
behind them. (Remind the class not to read the name out loud.) The person in the
chair can ask yes/no questions. (Am I a woman? Am I a singer? Am I a writer? Do I
have dark hair? Am I living now?)
Telephone Role Plays
(This takes 5 minutes of prep.) Give two students slips of paper with situations
written. (Student A wants to go to the movies this evening and calls student B.
Student B has a lot of English homework and must stay at home.) In front of the
class, students will then sit back-to-back and have a telephone conversation on the
given topic.
How Observant Are You?
Students stand in a line, facing each other in pairs for 5 seconds. Everyone then turns
back-to-back for 30-40 seconds and changes one thing about their appearance.
Students turn back around and guess what is different about their partner.
Story Pass
On a sheet of paper (not in their copybooks), have students copy the sentence “The
mother walked into the room and screamed.” Give them two minutes to creatively add
to the story (but not finish.) They then pass the story to their neighbor. Repeat and
pass on a few more times. Instruct students to end the story they have and take turns
reading to the class.
The Evolving Sentence
Write one sentence on the board. (Such as “The rabbit quickly jumped over the blue
flowers.”) Students take turns individually coming to the board and changing one
word at a time until the sentence is completely different. (The dog quickly jumped
over the blue flowers. The dog quickly ran over the blue flowers. The dog happily ran
over the blue flowers… etc.) For more of a challenge, students can identify the part of
the sentence they are changing.
Two Truths and a Lie
Students write three sentences about themselves—two true, one false. The object for
students is to fool their classmates by saying things that other people do not know
about them.
Alibi (this takes around 30 minutes)
Tell the class that a crime has been committed. (For example, “Last night all of the
grade books were stolen from the teacher’s room.”) Choose two (strong) students
and announce to the class that both students are suspects in the crime. Send the two
suspects into the hallway to construct a strong alibi (they were both seen together on
the night before, and they must be each others witness. They must be able to
remember their story, or else they will look guilty.) Divide the rest of the class into two
groups, and announce that they are detectives. They must write a list of questions to
ask the two suspects. (Where were you last night? Why were you there? What did
you do? What time did you go home?) After a few minutes, bring the two “suspects”
back into the classroom and send each to a different group. Give the students 3-5
minutes to ask questions, and then switch. (Each group of detectives will question the
suspects independently). After all questions have been asked, allow the “detectives”
to say their conclusion. (Did the suspects commit the crime, or are they innocent?)
All Ages
Name 6
Put pupils in a circle. Give a ball to the pupil who will begin. Name a topic (such as
types of flowers, sports, American holidays, clothing, things that are green, etc.). The
pupil with the ball passes the ball to the pupil to her right and begins to say six things
in the category. If the ball gets passed back to the pupil before six objects are said,
she has to sit down and someone else takes her place.
Snowball (Chain Drills)
The first pupil in the chain is given a topic, such as fruit. The first student says a fruit
(apple.) The second person repeats the first fruit and adds a second (apple, pear.)
Third student continues, and people who do not remember are out. (The last person
who can repeat all of the fruits wins.)
Show and Tell
Students must draw pictures of something important to them. Then, each student
shows to the class what they drew and explains why.
My name is Alice…
Alphabetically, the students take turns saying a name, place a profession. Challenge
them to keep a steady pace, and not to take too much time. (My name is Alice, I live
in Alaska and I am an artist. My name is Ben, I live in Boston, and I am a baker.)
Alphabet Relay
Explain the concept of a relay race. (One person at the board from each team at a
time, pass the chalk quickly when finished writing.) Divide the class into two teams.
Divide the board and give the class a topic with a wide vocabulary base that they are
studying/have studied (nature, school, travel, food, etc.). Teams are given three
minutes to alphabetically list vocabulary they know related to the topic. (airplane,
baggage, customs, driver…)
Charades
Have students act out and guess vocabulary words as a warm up.
Pictionary
Have students draw and guess vocabulary words as a warm up.
Hangman
Draw a blank for each letter of a vocabulary word, and have students guess letters. Fill
them in as they guess, but for each wrong guess, draw a piece of a stick-figure man. If
they guess the word before the man is complete, they win. (Alternative- draw a man
with a parachute with many strings attaching him to the chute. Erase the strings for
wrong guesses.)
Dictation Relay
Divide the class into 2-4 teams (depending on size.) The weakest student in the team
will be the writer. The other students take turns coming to the front of the room
where you (quietly) tell them a sentence. (It works well if all of the sentences create a
story.) Repeat it as many times as the student needs to commit it to memory, and
then the student returns to their group and repeats the sentence (EXACTLY) for the
writer to record. Focus on accuracy, not speed. After 10-12 sentences, regroup as a
class and check each teams writing. The team with the fewest mistakes wins.
Telephone
Quietly, tell one student a sentence. The student will then tell his/her neighbor, who
will then pass the sentence to the next group of students. The sentence continues
around the room, and the last person will say it. (The goal is for the last person to say
the same sentence as the teacher.)
