Noodle Doodle

Level: Elementary, Intermediate and Advanced.

Skills: writing.

Topic: vocabulary, grammar, spelling.

Materials: strands of uncooked spaghetti 

Time: 5 to 10 minutes.

Hand out strands of uncooked spaghetti to the students. They must break them up and form into words or entire sentences on their desk tops (or the floor). So for instance I say to the class, "He is my friend." Working as fast as they can, in groups, students write the sentence in spaghetti. The team that finishes writing the sentence first raise their hands, I check the sentence to make sure it is right and award that team a point. 

It isn't a game you play every week and it requires some sweeping up afterwards.

Univocalics

Level: Advanced.

Skills: writing.

Topic: vocabulary.

Materials: pencil, paper.

Time: 5 to 10 minutes.

Univocalics are pieces of writing which deliberately use only one vowel of the alphabet. 

If you find it easy to do in prose, try writing a poem using only one of the vowels. 

Quickdraw McGraw

Level: Elementary, Intermediate and Advanced.

Skills: speaking.

Topic: vocabulary, grammar, spelling.

Materials: cards for the words/sentences you're going to use, inflatable hammer.

Time: 10 to 15 minutes.

This is a fun way to practice quick-thinking production for just about any vocabulary or language you're teaching. Set up two desks at the front of the room. Put a soft object (for example, a paper ball) on each desk. Have two students come up to stand at a desk and face each other. Then put a card on each desk.

Give some kind of signal to start the quickdraw. The students then race to flip their card over, produce the language you want them to say, and then throw the ball to try and hit their opponent. The first student to correctly produce the language and hit their opponent wins. Students are allowed to dodge what's thrown at them, but I find that running around the room makes the game not so exciting. So tell them they can dodge as long as their feet don't move (Matrix moves are just fine). Also, be careful of head shots.

To control the sneakier kids, I enforce a "Kabong!" (from the old Hanna Barbara cartoon character Quickdraw McGraw/El Kabong) If they move their feet when dodging, throw too hard, hit their opponent's head, or just mumble gibberish to quickly get their chance to throw, then I "Kabong!" them on the head with an inflatable hammer.

My students just loved this game!

Vocabularyclept Poetry

Level: Intermediate and Advanced.

Skills: writing.

Topic: vocabulary, grammar, spelling.

Materials: a short (one paragraph) story, pencil and paper.

Time: 10 to 15 minutes.

The object here is to reconstruct a poem after its words have been mixed up. A poem (preferably a fairly well-known poem) is chosen and its words are mixed up, either entirely at random or rearranged in alphabetical order. The students then try to reconstruct the poem, or make a new poem from the words.