Get them to play zap! Loads of fun and once they know how to play, you just sit back and relax.
Get them in a circle standing. One student starts in the middle. The student in the middle is the boss, what they say goes. Object is last person standing.
The “boss” spins around pointing and saying , zip zip zip……when they stop, the person they are pointing at ducks. The two on either side have to draw and shoot the other person. The boss calls the winner. In the ESL / EFL variation, instead of saying zap, the boss says a letter. The two students shoot each other by drawing and saying a word beginning with that letter. The loser dies and must sit down. Continue until 2 students left. Stand them back to back. They pace 3 steps and then draw. The winner, the last person alive goes to the middle as “boss” and you start again……
Lots of variations. The letter is the simplest. But you can do ending in the letter, word association (boss says food, they say a food or associated word), verb – noun , noun – verb. Country / city or language or nationality etc……
Fun game and the students really concentrate and get into it. Zip – zap. Sounds complicated but anything but. My grade 4s would play this all day if I had let them…..
This post was submitted by Dmitry.
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2 Responses to Zip Zap
Daniel K
July 27th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Oh, this is a great game that students of all ages love! Here’s a variation I know of:
Fear Factor Pies: Before the game starts (and this is optional, depending on students’ comprehension level), ask students if they know about “Fear Factor.” If they don’t, explain that it’s an American show where people do disgusting things for money. Then, get students to contribute things we can put in a “Fear Factor pie”: spiders, snakes, rotten fruit, etc. Instead of “zip zip zip,” the ‘boss’ says someone’s name. That student ducks, and the two students on either side say “Splat!,” throwing a pie at the other student.
Great ideas with the letters and word association variations… thanks!
David
August 6th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
thanks Daniel. I learned this game when watching my class (grade 4 esl in Canada) play inside when it was raining. I saw them playing and zapping and concentrating so much! So I got them to play the English variation and it really worked!
Lots of games can be adapted for language, like yours…
David