Fun Activities to Review Past Simple

Reviewing and recalling certain topic, for my students of secondary school, are the important ones. They are often being forgetful if we do not repeat and review the previous topics. One of the examples is reviewing the past verbs to tell about their past experiences. Many activities have been done by them, such as card game, bingo game, guessing game, and so forth. Last meeting, we had some interesting and fun activities to review the use of past verbs to study recount text. 

I prepared a simple lesson plan for my students and some materials/worksheets/medias to review past verbs of recount text. First, my students had exercises about regular and irregular past verbs, the pronunciation, and the rules of -ed/-d suffixes. After that, they were asked to make simple sentences using the past verbs given on a piece of paper based on the pattern they have learnt before. The most right answer got a score. 

The next activity was pair work card game. The students sat face to face and they had a set of questions cards. They played in turn taking the card out from the box and called out the question. His/her opponent partner must give an answer. If he/she gave the right answer, the card would be hers/his. Students with the most cards got a score. 

The last reviewing activity was listening to songs. I searched suitable songs for the topic on google, and I found two songs, they are 'because you loved me by Celine Dion' and 'Yesterday by The Beatles'. Then, I prepared the activities using these songs. First, I gave the students a song worksheet of 'because you loved me' lyric. In each verse, there were two choices of past verbs, and students had to choose the best answer of the verbs by listening to the song. 

Still using the same song, the students were given the second worksheet. In this activity, they had to get rid of the extra words written on the song lyrics. So, I gave extra words on each sentence of the lyrics, and the students circled the unnecessary words/phrases on the lyrics of the song. At last, the students had the third worksheet of the second song, entitled 'Yesterday by The Beatles'. The students filled the blanks lyrics of the song by listening to the song played twice. Students with the most right answer of these three activities would get a score. 

'My Delicious Sandwich'

 

The children around my house, in Trenggalek, East Java, Indonesia, are not familiar with sandwich, which is known as a western food. Last week, we learnt about food and drink. I showed to them some picture flashcards of food and drink and one of them was 'sandwich'. They asked me what kind of sandwich is and I told them that it is like a hamburger but having different bread. Because my students have not known yet such kind of food, yesterday we made our own simple sandwich. In this activity, they not only know what sandwich looks like, but they learn about the vocabularies related to sandwich also. 

I prepared some materials related to the topic of sandwich. I made some pictures flashcards about the ingredients of making sandwich, such as bread, sausage, chicken nugget, tomato, lettuce, cheese, and sauce. Then, I also prepared a worksheet for them. First, the students (around 7-8 years old) practiced the pronunciation and spelling words using flash cards. They repeated and spelled the ingredients of making sandwich. After that, I showed the real objects of the ingredients put on small plates/saucers and labeled the names of them using colorful sticky notes. Next, the students did exercises on their worksheet about making sandwich. 

The focus of the activity was to practice vocabulary related to sandwich, so we did not talk about the procedures of making sandwich. After having exercises, it was the time to make yummy sandwich. While arranging the ingredients, I asked the students again what the names of them one by one by asking the question 'what is it?' and pointing the real objects. When the sandwiches were done, we put them on a large flat plate. The children labeled their sandwich by writing their name on a sticky note and was embedded  by using tooth-pick. They were really excited having their own delicious sandwich and it was ready to be tasted. They said, 'Hmmmmm...so yummy!' 

Comparison Board Game

Board Game

My students are frequently being forgetful when they have to review about comparison material. They are often making mistakes all the times to differentiate among the three types of comparison, they are positive degree, comparative degree, and superlative degree. They usually put the wrong prefixes and suffixes of comparison words, for example; the word 'high' will be 'more higher' or 'highest' to form comparative sentences. Teacher has drilled them in each meeting or given them an easy and eye catching note about comparison, but it does not work optimally. 

The students play the board game

Having the experiences above, teacher has designed a board game to review the use of comparison sentences. Through this fun activity, teacher expects that the students can memorize the pattern of comparison sentences in an interesting way. Even though, this game is quite common, but my students enjoy to play this game with their friends, and they feel excited to finish the game firstly than others. The preparation for teacher is quite easy. I made some nice and colorful shapes using Ms. Words and arranged them into downward spiral or like 'snake and ladder', then I put some clues to form comparison sentences. The clues are designed to be authentic ones, so the students are familiar with the words or situation, such as Trenggalek & Surabaya; Blackberry & Android; You & Your sister/brother, and so forth. Each player rolls the dice and she/he has to form and call out a sentence of comparison using the clue given. The player, who land his/her counter on "finish", will be the winner of this game.  

Our Resolution in 2017

It is the end of January and it is not too late to write our resolutions in the rest of the New Year of 2017. A couple of weeks a go. I read an article written by Kelli which talked about her experience in the process of teaching of creating hopes and dreams. Based on the experience, I asked my students to create and write their resolutions in this New Year as well as learning Future Tense.

Before creating and writing the resolution, yesterday, the students learnt about making simple sentences using future tense patterns, it is 'be going to + V1' and I gave them a worksheet. Students chose and numbered some resolutions available on the worksheet, such as, watch less TV , lose weight, study more hard, go travelling, read more books, spend less time of using smartphone, be patient, stay healthy, and so forth. If the students had other resolutions, they could write or add them on the list. After that, teacher prepared and printed a beautiful starburst line image, and they wrote the resolution likes 'This year I am going to ......' on the paper line image to write those resolutions. The students cut, wrote, and colored it beautifully. Later, they would post them on the wall or others. The students felt really great and excited writing their own simple resolutions and learnt grammar of future plans as well. Besides that, the students shared and compared their resolutions each other.

Wild Card Game

A classroom has already discussed about present and past simple tense. Now, it is the time for the students to have an exercise of the two tenses. When I have to ask them to practice producing simple sentences in a traditional way (writing sentences on their notebook), soon they feel lazy and bad-mood, they grumble along the activities. They think that it is really monotonous and can not encourage them to learn optimally. Knowing this fact, it is necessary to prepare a fun activity for them to practice producing simple sentences as well as drill them the use of the two tenses, present and past simple. 

To encourage students motivation in learning English, teacher prepares a fun game called 'Wild Card Game'. The goal of this activity is to practice making sentences using word cards correctly. Here, teacher prepares a set of cards consisted of 'wild card' (no words on it) and 'word card' (with words on it). The 'wild card' can be used for any words needed by the players and the 'word card' will be about nouns, verbs, to be, article, prepositions, or adverbs. The number of cards are around 100 or 150 cards.

The procedures:

1. If you have really small classroom consisted of four or five students, you can play it at once. But if you have more that that, you can play it in group and divide the students into group of five or six students. 

2. The students/players sit in a circle and determine who will be player A, B, C or D and the order can be clockwise based on the first, second, and so forth.

3. Teacher shuffles the cards and spreads the cards to each player. Each of them will get six cards only in front of them . The remaining cards are put in a pile in the middle of the players. 

4. Next, each player have to arrange a meaningful sentence using the six cards or less than those. If the cards do not work well, the player can exchange the card with another card in a pile one by one based on their turn. The players can go on to exchange the card until they can make a meaningful sentence using cards in front of them. The thing you have to notice is that in front of each player, there must be six cards only, even though they exchange them many times. (The cards thrown are put in another pile and can be used by another player)

5. If a player finds 'a wild card', he/she can use the card to help completing his/her meaningful sentence. The "wild card' can be any words needed by the players.

6. Once a player can make a sentence, he/she read the sentence aloud, and if other players say that it is correct, he/she can collect and set aside the cards.

7. Player who can firstly collect thirty cards wins the game. 

Playing Card to Review Things in the House

I think, you are really familiar with card to play poker or solitaire. They are usually consisted of Jack, Queen, King Cards, and others. In this topic of learning English, teacher would like to make them in different way (I mean they are really the simple ones and use paper material that is available around) and basically they are the same. 

To teach vocabulary for children or elementary students, we must prepare a set of fun activities to help them memorizing and identifying the words. If we give them some words in a traditional way, likes dictating the words and writing the meaning, they will soon forget the words the next day. That is why giving the children little experience of learning, I think it is better. 

Today, my students around 8-9 years old learn about the things found in the house. They learn about parts of house, such as living room, bed room, kitchen, and bath room. Teacher prepares a set/a pack of cards divided into four categories. The usual set of cards consist of hearts, spades, diamonds, and clubs. In this vocabulary game, teacher changes the four categories into kitchen, living room, bed room, and bath room. Each category is consisted of fourteen (14) things found in each room, starting from card number 1 to As card. Each number of pips on the card determines the rank of the card when they play the cards. 

The procedures:

1. First, students learn vocabulary about things in the house. In this activity, teacher may choose various activities, like worksheet or flashcard. In my classroom, I like using real objects first, then they do a worksheet. 

2. After that, students sits in a circle. If the classroom has more than six students, teacher may divide them into groups. The turn of players may be a clockwise rule or they sit based on the result of scissor-paper-rock rule. 

3. Teacher shuffles a set of cards and spreads them the for each player. He/she will hold four to five cards and teacher put a card as the 'opening '. The remaining cards are put in a pile in the middle of the players.

4. The first player must take one card out that suits to the 'opening' card, for example if the first card is 'doll' (thing in the bedroom), the players must take a card (in their hand) about things in the bedroom. If he/she does not have the card corresponded, he/she must take another/other cards in the pile. 

5. The player, with the highest rank of card for each round, has a chance to take his/her card out in the middle. 

5. The turn goes on clockwise, and the player who gets rid of his/her cards first will be the winner of the game.