As we approach the end of the year, the classroom can feel a little flat. Students are tired and so are you. Try some of the literacy games to fire up the classroom – they are great as do now activities, team builders and rewards.
1. Anagram Aerobics
Objective: To unjumble a group of anagrams before every other group
Procedure:
- Develop a list of words that are relevant to student learning.
- Jumble the letters in the word, record them across the whiteboard.
- Give each group of students a different coloured whiteboard marker.
- One student from each groups races to the whiteboard to unjumble a word before returning to their desk. The group with the most unjumbles wins!
2. Stop the Bus
Objective: To list words relating to a particular category.
Procedure:
- Record the following table up on the board. Groups must also have a copy with pen.
| Letter | Fruit | Vegetable | Movie | Animal | Food/Drink |
| A | |||||
| B |
Indicate to students that, when you say “go!”, they must record a noun starting with each letter.
Once they have recorded all answers, the group must yell “Stop the bus!”
3. Ridiculous How To
Objective: Students write a procedure on a silly or odd topic.
Procedure:
- Provide students with a ‘how to’ topic, such as ‘brushing teeth’ or ‘driving a car’.
- Students must write out how to complete this task in five easy steps.
- Once students have written out their ‘how to’, review the steps and see if anyone was missing!
4. The Never-ending Story
Objective: To build a story as a group.
Procedure:
- Each group must have a paper and pen.
- Provide students with the first sentence to the page.
- One student writes the next sentence to the story before folding the page so that only their last sentence is shown. Each student only ever sees the sentence written by the previous student.
- After a designated amount of time, students stop and unfold the page. Students can read their writing to the rest of the group or share to the classroom.
5. Alliteration Acrobatics
Objective: To write a text (poem, song, short story, biography etc) using only words start with a particular letter.
Procedure:
- Split students into pairs.
- Each student has a pen, paper, and a text type: poem, song, short story, biography etc.
- Students are assigned a letter.
- Students are told that they need to write one of these text types and attempt to use words only starting with the assigned letter. The winner is the pair who writes the most with the letter assigned. Bonus points should be assigned to pairs who can only use the letter provided.
The English Classroom 