Game idea 1:

Th e Borg

Target Grade: Elementary 3 - Junior High 1

Target English: Days of the Week, "What day is it?"
Preparation: Days of the Week mini-cards

The object of the game is to assimilate a collective that

consists of an entire "week." This game is functionally similar
to "snake tag" or "red rover" you may have played as a kid.

1. Students each get one mini-card for a day of the week

(Monday - Sunday).
2. The students "mingle" amongst each other and find a partner.

3. They do janken ( Rock, Paper, Scissors ) . The winner of janken asks the loser a
question: "What day is it?"
4. The student answers with the day of the week printed on his card. Eg. "It's
Monday."
5. If the day of the week on the that student's card matches the first student's
card, he is free to go. If his card is different, he gets "assimilated" and must
latch onto the first student (by putting his hand on the students shoulder or hanging
onto his shirt).
6. The pair of students now try to assimilate other students into their collective by
repeating steps 2 to 5.
7. Each student that becomes part of the collective must have a different mini-card
from all other members of the collective he is joining, (eg. two Wednesdays are not
allowed). If his card matches any of the other members, he is either free to go, or
must rejoin the collective that he got pulled out of.
8. Students in the collective should take turns initiating "janken" with other
students.
9. Any student from any collective may initiate janken with any other student,
whether he is already part of another collective or not. Ie. you can steal members
from other collectives. :-) No "tag-backs" though.
10. The first collective to gather 7 members, each with a different "day of the week"
 mini-card wins the round/game.

Game idea 2:

We ek- lon g War

Target Grade: Elementary 3 - Junior High 1

Target English: Days of the Week, "What day is it?"
Preparation: Days of the Week mini-cards

The object of this game is to collect all seven "day of the week" mini-cards to
assemble an entire week. It is based on the children's' card game: "war" and the
GenkiEnglish Card Game.

1. Each "day of the week" mini-card has a number on it, corresponding to how far the
planet is from the sun.

Ie.

Sunday = Sun = 0
Monday = Moon = 3
Tuesday = Mars = 4
Wednesday = Mercury = 1
Thursday = Jupiter = 5
Friday = Venus = 2
Saturday = Saturn = 6

2. Each student receives 3 or 4 mini-cards (preferably all different).

3. When the teacher says "go" students find a partner and "janken" to see who gets to
ask the question: "What day is it?"

4. Both students shuffle their stacks face-down. The student who won "janken" asks
 the question. The second student turns over the top card in his stack answers with
the day printed on it, eg. "It's Wednesday."

5. The asking student turns over his own card.

6. The student with the planet that is farthest from the sun (the larger of the two
numbers) wins his opponent's card and puts both cards back in his stack.

7. In the case of a tie, either janken to decide the winner, or put the two cards
down and repeat steps 3 and 4. The winning student wins all four cards.

8. Several times during the game, (but not too often or it becomes confusing), the
teacher should reverse the rule, so that the smaller number (the closest planet to
the sun) wins the round. That makes things fair for those students who got "stuck"
with low-numbered cards.

9. The winner of the game is not who has the most cards but the student who is first
to collect all seven days in a week. So if a student collects three "Friday" cards,
they only count as one.

Tip 1: I found that explaining this game to the Japanese Teacher and playing a few
sample rounds with him/her prior to the class helps tremendously in conveying the
message to the kids and explaining the rules if they can't understand.

Tip 2: It may help the game go smoother if, for the first two rounds or so, you
practice the game as a class, with the students playing with their neighbour sitting
next to them before you set them loose on anyone.

Mus hi Bat tle Ga me

Target Age Group: Elem 1 to Adults ( esp Mushi King fans!)

This is a great game that you can use with any topic, but it ties in very nicely with
the new "Creepy Crawlies" theme! "Mushi" means "bug" in Japanese and anything to do
 with games and bugs is very popular at the moment.

1. Give each kid 4 or 5 mini cards.

2. They fan them out so other people can see how many cards they have, but can't see
what's on them.

3. The kids find a partner.

4. The first kid asks "What's that?" whilst pointing to one of their opponent's
cards. ( "What's that?" is one of the target phrases in the Creepy Crawlies song,).

5. The other kid answers.

6. The kid who just answered points to one of the cards from the first kid and asks
"What's that?"

7. This kid answers.

8. Now they "janken" ( Rock, Paper, Scissors).

9. The winner takes the loser's card and adds it to their fan of cards.

10. They go around asking different people until someone has a full set of 8 cards,
then they are the winner!!

11. If anyone runs out of cards, they come and ask the teacher who has an infinite
supply!

Thanks to the Mushi King card game craze, the thought of playing a card game with
bugs is a big hit with the kids (it's the new pokemon!), and if you use the Genki
English mini-cards then the pictures are cute enough so even the kids who hate bugs
like the game!

It is quite difficult to get a full set of 8 cards, so if you run out of time
remember the second rule of Genki English - "Losing doesn't mean losing, it just
 means try again!", and you should end up with a class of kids eager to try next
lesson, or in the playground if you let them keep the cards.

Or then again you could just give them 7 cards from the beginning and see a load of
winners straight away!

Hey we did a game during winter camp that I have adapted to fit many maaany lessons.
It goes by a lot of names. The kids at the last camp called it Baskin Robbins. In the
game I was taught you have all the kids in a circle and they take turns saying a
series of number/months or in this case alphabet letters. The kids can say up to 3
letters. The goal is to not says the last number/month/ letter. I have also heard
this game called Don't say December.

For example:
Kid 1 (K1) A B
K2: CDE
K3:FGH
K4:I
...
K27: XY
K28:Z!

The kids LOVE this game. I have kids asking to play it all the time.

Another fun game is to have all the kids in a circle. The kids take turns jumping up
and saying a number/month/letter. The kids only say one at a time now. The 'it'
person changes rapidly around the circle. If two people jump up and say the same
letter they are out. This is really fun to play as well. If you have kids who are in
tune with each other ask them to go backwards, faster or skip a letter/number. It
always results in laughter. FYI if a kid doesn't say something during the round
they are out as well.

I have used this game to teach 1-2-3, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, days of the week, seasons, you
name it. If it is possible to put it in an order I did it. The kids LOVE it every
time.