My Teaching Resources

The Laughing Game

Divide the class into two teams and two lines. Instruct the children to stand shoulder to shoulder facing a person on the other team. Stand the children about a metre apart. Choose one child from each team to walk past each person in the row of the opposite team. The people on the team try to make the person chosen from the other team laugh or smile as he/she walks by. No touching is allowed. If the person walking down the aisle makes it to the other end straight-faced they join their team again. If they laugh/smile they must join the other team.

The Weather Game

The whole class stands in a large circle facing the middle. All the children face the middle, close their eyes and pause until there is complete silence. Remind the children that in order for the activity to work they need to be totally silent so they can hear what is happening around them, specifically the person to the right of them. As the children keep their eyes closed, one child (the leader) starts the ‘rainstorm’ by rubbing their hands together. The person on the left joins them and so on until the complete circle is rubbing their hands. When the leader hears the rain from the child to the right of them he/she starts clicking their fingers. When the whole circle is clicking the leader changes to clapping, thigh slapping, and finally stamping feet. After everyone is stomping their feet and leader starts reversing all the actions, one by one. When everyone is at the beginning at rubbing their hands, the leader stops rubbing their hand and holds the hand of the child on their left. Each person follows until there is complete silence.

Classmate Changes

This game can be played as a small group or as a whole class. Choose a class volunteer. Instruct the children to look at the volunteer very carefully and remember as much as they can about their appearace. The volunteer leaves the rooms, changes three noticable things about them and re-enters the room. If your going to play this game as a whole class, try choosing 3-5 volunteers. This game can also be played in pairs but instead of leaving the room the pairs moves back to back.

Wink (Murderer)

The children sit in a large circle with their eyes closed. The teacher chooses the winker. Everyone opens their eyes again. If a child is winked at, they must pause and then make a scene to show others that they are out of the game. The purpose of the game is to catch the winker before everyone is out. If someone thinks they can guess the winker they must say "I have an accusation". There must be two accusers to stop the game. Once two accusers have called out they count together to three and point at the winker (without discussing it). If they point to someone who isn’t the winker or to different people they are out of the game. If the point to the correct winker the game is over.

Back to Games for the Classroom

This short essay refers to an Art Unit I taught with Year 6 children. During a Multicultural and Language studies I reflected on the barriers for an EAL student (English as a second language). Click the link above to see an example of the unit outline.

The Analysis

A major barrier in my unit is the New Zealand cultural content in my unit ‘Kowhaiwhai patterns’, aimed at Year 6children. As part of the introduction I showed the children different kowhaiwhai patterns and the children replied with places they had seen them so it related to their experiences. If an EAL child had never visited a marae or sighted these patterns they would find it hard to relate to. For example, they might have no understanding of the significance of a ‘koru’ and other patterns. The unit had a bicultural focus, so it did not include a multicultural perspective and not include an EAL learners cultural background.

I believe that learning is more meaningful when the child has had some prior knowledge or experience with the content. Unless a EAL child had taken notice kowhaiwhai patterns or visited a marae they would have no understanding of the content. They have may have noticed kowhaiwhai patterns in everyday life but not realised the cultural significance of them in New Zealand. The unit did not include symbols of their culture, so perhaps that was a barrier that did not reinforce how symbols could be used in art to represent an idea. Because the topic did not include the EAL child’s cultural background they may feel alienated and not inclusive.

Because the children’s responses were verbally given an EAL learner would not have the confidence to speak out infront of the class. As well as the children’s responses my questions and responses we also verbally given. By so much verbal communication with the teacher and children, an EAL may find it hard to listen and take in so much information, especially when they have no prior knowledge of the content. In the unit, the children watched as I commentated how to draw a kowhaiwhai pattern on the whiteboard and the children tried it out themselves into their scrap books. This is another verbal barrier in my unit. An EAL learner has difficulty following a series of instructions and has a short concentration span, especially if the topic is unfamiliar.

As well as being new to the children, Maori vocabulary will be very difficult to read and pronounce. These words include:koru, mangopare, rauru and puhoro. The vowels in the words sound different to English words, for example ‘o’ is pronounced ‘or’. An EAL learner will have trouble distinguishing certain sounds. These words will be very new to them and because they are words that are not used regularly will be hard to master. They may find it hard to correspond a new word, to a new kowhaiwhai pattern. Unlike the language of the playground, the language associated with school learning takes longer to develop – it is frequently quit abstract, and there are fewer concrete visual clues to support meaning. It is not only Maori vocabulary that may be difficult to EAL learners. Only art related vocabulary might be a barrier, such as pastels and. medium

The initial discussions were done as a whole class when the children were actually designing and drawing their artworks it was done individually. As I mentioned previously an EAL child would not feel confident to speak out infront of the whole class especially if everyone in the class has had some prior knowledge. In a couple previous placements I have seen EAL that do not seek help if they need it, especially if they are working independently.

In my unit, the children used different kowhaiwhai patterns to represent characteristics in the form of a family portrait, for example, mangopare means strong, so a child may draw a big magopare to represent their father. An EAL might find it hard to express an idea (family member) in the form of a symbol (kowhaiwhai) which was the big understanding of my unit. They may also find it hard to understand how colours might represent different moods, for example red could represent love, or green might represent a love for the garden. The teacher should be aware that colours in another culture could represent different ideas in another culture. For example red could mean love in New Zealand, but it could represent war in another culture.

The children expressed the ideas of their kowhaiwhai family portrait in an annotated draft of their drawing. An EAL may find not have the language structure to describe what is in their picture, for example, “My mum is yellow because she is happy”. He/she might have to to be given some language structures to use to repeat throughout the picture. An EAL usually makes mistakes with basic sentence structure if they are not given, for example, “you told me where is it” (Gibbons 2000). As an annotated draft was marked, it is crucial that an EAL learner knew how to express their ideas with the right sentence structures. The child may make grammatical errors not typical of a native speaker, for example in word order, word endings, tense or prepositions. By giving children certain sentence structures, they will find it easier to report back to the teacher and other members in the class.

Over the last three years of my tertiary education I have observed many different teaching styles and beliefs. Here is my teaching philosophy that is personal to me. As I continue with my education and teaching in the classroom my philosophy could be subject to change 🙂

My aim is to:

• Create a positive classroom environment that encourages children to take risks and know that their culture, values, and ideas are respected and celebrated by their peers and the teacher.
• Give children choices in order for them to make informed/responsible decisions and know that they have consequences.
• Plan, implement and assess to programmes to relate to the children in an aunthentic context so it is relevant and meaningful.
• Incorporate problem-solving approaches in the classroom and set up experiences for them to transfer their new skills to similar but different situations, particularly in my specialty areas in maths and ICT.
• Use a range of range of teaching approaches such as co-operative learning, inquiry and other methods to foster student growth, encourage the inquisitive mind and the pursuit of knowledge.
• Integrate ICT into curriculum areas where applicable and ensure that there is sequential development of these skills and experiences over the year, as well as continuing with my own development in this area.
• Allow space in my programmes for students to reflect upon what they have learned, even if the reflection occurs in less formal ways.
• Use the ‘Sports Education Model’ to foster team spirit, fair play in the classroom as well as integrating it into other curriculum areas.

This is a great idea for grouping children at random. It is appropriate for all age levels and the energy level is moderate. It is a great idea to be played at the beginning of the year as children get to know each other, or as a quick drama game.

Tell the children to find someone who has the same or different..

• Pets
• Favourite T.V. show
• Favourite sport
• Number of brothers and sisters
• First initial
• Birthday month
• Colour hair

These are only several ideas – the possibilities are endless! A variation of the game is to get the class to complete this activity without using their voices

Here are a range of fun classrooms games and great if your relieving in a classroom! Games include: Run Around, Make a Face, People Patterns, Crocodiles, Knots and the Cardboard Boat Games. To see more games, see Drama Games .

Run Around

Organise the children to sit in a large circle (this game is best played outdoors. The teacher makes a statement such "someone who has blue eyes". Everyone who has blue eyes then gets up and runs around the circle and back to theirr place. The game then continues with other categories such as itmes of clothing, likes/dislikes or preferences at home.

Make a Face

The teacher uses pictures of faces with expressions. A child from a group or class take turns to take a card and without showing it to the other children, demonstrate the expression. The other children in the group or class have to try name the expression. Expressions could be sad, happy, angry, excited, nervous etc

People Patterns

Organise the children into groups of about 6. Discuss different types of patterns (this could be linked to algebra) for example A B B A, A C B A B, A A B B A. Have the members of the group organise themselves in patterns. Once they have made a pattern the group stands infront in the class in that order. An example of a pattern could be "white shoes, black shoes" or "jerseys on, jerseys off". The people pattern should tell the class what type of pattern they are demonstrating (A B A B, etc). The class then has to guess who can go next in the pattern. They may not guess the pattern until have named a person to stand next in the people pattern. The child to correctly identify the pattern will join his/her group to establish the next pattern.

Crocodiles

Organise the class into four large groups and ask them to stand on a bench or marked area. Tell the children they have to pretend they are in a lifeboat and there are crocodiles in the water. If any of them fall in, the crocodiles will know they are there and they will get eaten. Their task is to organise themselves in order according to what the teacher calls out. Examples could be height, birthdays, age etc.

Knots

The whole class stands in a circle, shoulder to shoulder. Each child has to reach out and grab two different hand, not including people next to them. Encourage the children not to criss-cross their hands. The children must untangle themselves so that everyone is standing in a round circle again. After the children have done this, try organising the children into two groups and make it a competition.

The Cardboat Boat Game

This game is best played in a gym or field. Each team (4-6 children) are given a piece of cardboard, just big enough for them all to stand on. The game starts off with all members of the group’s hand carrying the piece of cardboard (the boat). The teacher has a choice of two commands: ‘Go’ means teams can move forward holding their piece of cardboard at any speed, and ‘attack’ means the team must put their piece of cardboard on the ground and all team members must stand on it. If one child falls off the boat, the whole team goes down. The last team to get on their boat is ‘out’ and they must rip of piece of coardboard off from their boat before the teacher calls out ‘go’ again. The object of the game is to get to the other end of the gym or field.

More Games for the Classroom