warm up activities
Warm-up activities
1,
Fruits and vegetables | 2. Riddles | 3. Jokes - a silly dictation | 4. Lateral
thinking | 5. The balloon game | 6. Sherlock Holmes | 7. Noughts and crosses
What’s a
Warmer?
When
planning a lesson particularly think about how you want it to start. A good
beginning can set the tone of the lesson and get students alert and relaxed –
the best condition for learning.
The first
activity is often described as a ‘warmer’ – an activity that gets students
thinking in English and awakens their brain cells, and hopefully makes them
feel positive about the lesson.
Warmers can
review language from previous classes or can introduce new topics, ideas and
language items. They can also be freestanding and have little connection with
what was done before or will be done later in the lesson. Warmers are often
energetic and fun.
Link to the
warmers section for many more warmers.
1.
Fruits and vegetables
Aims
To practise
simple personal questions: What’s your name? How old are you? Are you married?
How many children do you have? What’s your job?
To revise
basic vocabulary
To break
the ice and make students relax and enjoy using English
To
incorporate body language and intonation in the lesson
To get
students moving around the classroom and changing the dynamics away from a
teacher-led activity
Procedure
Ask
students to write down the following words on a scrap of paper, keeping what
they write secret form those around them
Tell them
to write:
1. the name
of a fruit
2. the name
of a vegetable
3. a
4. Ask them
to write the answer to this question – Do you like football?
5. How many
pencils and pens do you have?
6. What is
the first thing you do every morning?
Now tell
them that these things are actually
1. their
first name
2. their
family name
3. their
age
4. are they
married?
5. how many
children they have
6. their
job
Now they
must get up and go around the class and ask the personal questions and share
information about their new selves.
Encourage
them to shake hands (if appropriate) and make eye contact when meeting new
people.
If they
don’t automatically use intonation appropriate for surprise etc, why not model
it before the activity.
e.g.
How old are
you?
A hundred
and fifty seven.
Really!?
(said with rising intonation and a long stretch of the word)
This game
ensures that students really listen to the answers of their questions as it is
an information gap – they won’t know what the answers will be
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2.
Riddles
Aims
To get
students thinking.
To have fun
using English.
To foster
team work and stop children just calling out and attention-seeking. If they
don’t confer about the answers, they could easily lose their chance to win. You
might have to allocate a secretary / representative for each team to speak on
their behalf.
Procedure
Explain the
game clearly.
Divide the
class into teams of up to 6 students in each.
Write
6,5,4,3,2,1 on the board.
As you read
each clue to the riddles out, teams can guess what the answer is. If they are
correct after one guess they score 6 points, after 2 guesses five points,
etc...
If a team
gives the incorrect answer they cannot have another try.
I am not a
bird, but I can fly.
I eat insects
and fruit.
I’m dark.
I sleep
upside down.
(bat)
I’m brown on the outside.
I’m white
on the inside.
I’m hard
and you can eat or drink me.
I’m hairy.
I grow in
hot countries.
(coconut)
I’m yellow
and round
I’m the
same size as an apple
You can’t
eat me
You hit me
with a racquet
(tennis
ball)
I’m usually made of paper
But in
Australia I’m plastic
I can be
lots of colours
I have
pictures and numbers on me
You use me
to buy things
(bank-note)
Every
country has one.
I have
different colours.
I need wind
to fly.
The British
one is red, white and blue.
(flag)
I’m a special day.
People buy
each other presents.
I’m
romantic.
I’m on
February 14th.
(Valentine’s
Day)
I’m
something you do every day.
I’m also an
Olympic sport.
You use
your legs to do this.
It’s slower
than running.
(walking)
I’m something English people eat for
breakfast.
I’m hot.
You can put
butter and jam on me.
I’m cooked
bread.
(toast)
I’m a
sport.
I’m usually
done by men.
You need to
be powerful and quick.
Muhammad
Ali is the most. famous man who has played this sport.
You wear
shorts and gloves.
(boxing)
I’m a beautiful animal.
I’m found
in Africa.
I have the
first and last letters of the alphabet in my name.
I’m like a
horse.
I’m
striped.
(zebra)
Students
could prepare more of their own riddles for homework to be used in subsequent
games.
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3. Jokes
– a silly dictation
Aim
Good with
higher level students to allow processing of language.
Encourage
thinking skills as well as listening and writing.
Laughter is
great at helping to create a positive and energetic classroom mood.
Procedure
Tell the
students you have a cough today but you are still going to do a dictation. If
they don’t hear words, they will just have to guess what you said.
Read out a
joke like the one below and dictate as usual but don’t read all the words –
cough instead of saying certain words e.g. Eleven people were cough on a rope,
under a helicopter, ten men and one cough.
Students
have to guess what the missing words are and write them in, either individually
or in pairs.
After
checking whether they guessed correctly, they could discuss the joke and why/if
they found it funny.
They could
also try telling jokes they know in their mother tongue in English.
THE
JOKE:
Eleven people are hanging on a rope, under a helicopter, ten men and one woman. The rope is not strong enough to carry them all, so they decide that one has to leave, because otherwise they are all going to fall. They are not able to name that person, until the woman makes a very touching speech. She says she will voluntarily let go of the rope, because as a woman she is used to giving up everything for her husband and kids, or for men in general, and is used to always making sacrifices with little in return. As soon as she finishes her speech, all the men started clapping their hands......
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4.
Lateral thinking
Aim
To get
students thinking.
To allow
for practice of question forms and a wide range of vocabulary.
This
activity does not have to be linked with any others.
Procedure
Explain
that you are going to read out something strange and the students have to work
out what has happened.
The
students can ask questions about the situation and you can only respond with a
yes/no/maybe.
Read out
one of the descriptions below and make sure that the students have understood.
The first
student to guess what has happened is the winner.
You can
allow students to work in pairs or threes or teams to discuss the situation and
help each other.
Lateral thinking situations
1. A
2. When
Harry comes home he finds Sarah is dead, lying in a pool of water and Tom is
sitting quietly on the armchair. There is some broken glass on the floor. Tom
won’t be charged with murder. Why not?
3. A
4. A
5. Five
pieces of coal, a carrot and a scarf are lying on the grass. Nobody put them on
the grass but there is a perfectly logical reason why they should be there.
What is it?
6. A
7. One day
a man received a parcel in the post. Carefully packed inside was a human arm.
He examined it, repacked it and then sent it on to another man. The second man
also carefully examined the arm before taking it to the woods and burying it.
Why did they do this?
8. A
Answers:
1. He
jumped out of a airplane with a parachute on his back that failed to open.
2. Sarah is
a fish and Tom is a cat. Sarah was swimming in her bowl. Tom started playing
with it and knocked it over.
3. She is a
dwarf and cannot reach the top button unless she is carrying an umbrella.
4. The man
had hiccups. The barman recognized this from his speech and drew the gun in
order to give him a shock. It worked and cured the hiccups - so the man no
longer needed the water.
5. They
were used by children who made a snowman. The snow has now melted.
6. They
were two of a set of triplets (or quadruplets etc.)
7. The
three men had been stranded on a desert island. Desperate for food, they had
agreed to amputate their left arms in order to eat them. They swore an oath
that each would have his left arm cut off. One of them was a doctor and he cut
the arms off his two companions. They were then rescued. But his oath was still
binding so he later had to have his arm amputated and sent to his colleagues.
8. The
man's horse was called Friday.
5. The
Balloon Game
Aim
To energise
students and foster cooperation / team spirit.
To channel
energy positively.
The
sentences are chosen to either revise a language area like word order or to set
a task or question for the students to focus on a new topic/language area.
Procedure
for a class
of 30 students get 6 balloons.
cut up
questions or sentences – taking into account their language level
e.g. Peter
has regularly played tennis on Wednesdays.
If you won
the lottery, how would you spend the money?
stuff the
cut up bits of paper into each balloon (this is not difficult) and blow them up
and tie them securely.
explain the
activity clearly to the students.
divide
class into 6 groups of 5 students.
each groups
chooses a runner.
when the
teacher says GO the runner runs up to their balloon, which is on the floor at
the front of the classroom (with as much space made around it as possible).
they must
burst the balloon without using their hands or feet and pick up the pieces of
paper inside.
they return
to their group and together must put the sentences(s)/ question(s) in the right
order.
the group
who finishes first are the winners.
if they
have produced questions, the next step is to work together to answer then
questions or discuss them.
6.
Sherlock Holmes
Aim
To get all
students moving and involved in a success-oriented task.
To practise
reading simple questions, here ‘how many’.
To
encourage a dynamic pace.
You can
ensure that quick students get more challenging questions as you hand them out,
to give everyone a chance to play the game.
Procedure
Hand out
strips of paper with directions like these:
How many
students are wearing black shoes today?
How many
chairs are there in the classroom?
How many
students are holding pencils?
How many
posters are there on the classroom walls?
Students
wander around the classroom finding the answer to their question.
As soon as
they have their answer, they run to the board, write the question and answer
and their name.
If there
are a lot of students and access to the board confined, students who have
finished can sit down in their seats when they are finished and then read out
their questions and answers in the order they finished at the end of the
activity.
7. Noughts
and Crosses
a b c
d e f
g h i
Aim
to revise
vocabulary from previous lessons in a fun, stress-free, game-like way
Procedure
draw the
grid above on the board.
divide the
class into 2 teams.
teams take
it in turns to nominate a square.
teachers
asks a question about vocabulary from the previous lesson(s).
if they get
the answer right, the team’s symbol goes into the square (usually X or O).
if they get
the answer wrong, the opposition team gets a chance to answer the question for
an extra turn.
the first
team to have a line of correct answers in any direction is the winner.
to make it
easier for yourself – give the class 5-10 minutes at the start of the lesson to
write their own questions for the opposition team.
Be very
clear about the rules from the start and ensure that the students recognise
that the teacher’s decision if final!
The best
warmers sometimes become a whole lesson!
What’s a Warmer?
When planning a lesson particularly think about
how you want it to start. A good beginning can set the tone of the lesson and
get students alert and relaxed – the best condition for learning.
The first activity is often described as a
‘warmer’ – an activity that gets students thinking in English and awakens their
brain cells, and hopefully makes them feel positive about the lesson.
Warmers can review language from previous
classes or can introduce new topics, ideas and language items. They can also be
freestanding and have little connection with what was done before or will be
done later in the lesson. Warmers are often energetic and fun.
1. Fruits and vegetables
2. Riddles
3. Jokes - a silly dictation
4. Lateral thinking
5. The balloon game
6. Sherlock Holmes
7. Noughts and crosses