Learning and playing
PARA LOS MÁS PEQUEÑOS:
1.
Letters and Words
Activities
1. Common Objects
Collect several objects that begin with the same sound and make a card with this letter sound on it. Make a second group of objects beginning with a different sound and a card to go with those.
Discuss the sounds of the letters on the two cards with your child and shuffle the objects. Separate the cards on the floor and ask your child to put each object near the sound that it starts with. This activity can help your child to "hear" the first sound of a word.
2. Odd-one Out
Say a number of words, all but one of which begin with the same sound. See if your child can pick out the odd one. It can be helpful to have the corresponding objects there for the child to look at.
Which starts with a different sound to the others?
What you'll need
- Paper
- Scissors
- Pen or pencil
- Glue
How to make it
-
To make each cube, transfer the pattern shown here onto stiff paper or card stock (or you can print a template).
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Next, write one household chore in each square. For extra fun, you can also label some of the squares "Free" (for a day off), "Choice" (to let players pick their own jobs), or "Trade" (to let the roller swap one task for a job belonging to another family member).
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Cut out the shape and fold along the dotted lines. Dot the tabs with glue and form the paper into a cube, pressing together the tabs and faces to secure them in place. Let the glue dry. Repeat with more cubes for more tasks, if needed.
Para subir la autoestima y como "warming"
What They Did: The girls sat in a circle and played the deceptively simple game of Pass the Mirror.
Why They Love This Idea: The game paves the way for future kindnesses. "From then on," says Carrie, "I noticed them complimenting each other more, saying things like,
'You played that game really well,' and my favorite, 'You're a great friend to me.'"
- Handheld mirror
How to play
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Have your group of kids sit in a circle and pass around a small handheld mirror. Each person takes a turn saying one nice thing about herself on the outside ("I have pretty freckles") and one nice thing about herself on the inside ("I am a good friend")
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https://elt.oup.com/parents-hubs-resources/games?selLanguage=en&selLanguage=cs&cc=cz&mode=hub Parents
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PARA HACER: guessing game
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Whats-My-Shape-A-2D-Shape-Game-474390
PARA PRACTICAR LOS HOMOPHONES:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/game/en21watc-game-paris-word
PARA CONOCERSE:
The game is a merely a series of questions, such as What do you like to do on rainy days? What is something that makes you angry? How does your family celebrate birthdays? I have simpler versions that feature only topics: children, money, television, birthdays. Students play in groups of 4-5 (more than that means that some students will fall silent).
Each student places a marker on start, and then they take turns to role a die and move their marker around the board. I buy the 8- or 12-sided dice from hobby shops to spread students around the board more; if you don’t have access to these, I recommend using two of the traditional six-sided dice.
When a student lands on a question (or topic), she speaks about it as much as she likes. She can address any aspect of the topic; it is entirely her choice. Her group members ask her questions, but do not offer their own answers or opinions. When she feels she has finished, she passes the die to the next student, and play continues.
It’s not a game that anyone can “win”—if someone reaches the end of the path, the final square says “go back,” and play reverses. I generally have students play for 20-30 minutes, but I have never had a group where any player got all the way back to start.
Charades
How to Play Charades
This game is ideal for family get-togethers: a "Charades Party" at Christmastime, for example, can include
every generation of the family. Keep the rules simple when you play with kids! With a bit of help, even kids as young as three can play.
Equipment: all that's needed is a watch or clock that counts seconds, although competitive types will want a real
stopwatch.
Rules and Tips
Basically, the game of Charades is pantomime: acting out a word or phrase without speaking. For example,
"football" could be broken down into "foot" and "ball." "Softball" might be more interesting.
Charades can be played with any type of word or phrase, but with kids you may find that movie titles work
best. Most kids are familiar with many simple movie titles such as Sleeping
Beauty or The Lion King. And even
the youngest can act out Pinocchio!
Usually Charades is played by two competing teams in a race against time. On each turn, a single player
acts out a phrase in front of his/her team-mates, and a stopwatch is used to track the time, with a maximum of two (or three) minutes for each turn. The team with the least
amount of total minutes and seconds wins. When playing with young kids, however, you might want to skip the
stopwatch and the competitive element.
Getting Started
There are variations of how to play, but here's one format:
- Divide into teams, and move into separate rooms.
- Think of a bunch of titles to be acted out, and write each title on a separate slip of paper.
- These slips of paper will be given to the opposite team.
- Write a player's name on each slip of paper, and make sure that young kids get easy titles to act out.
When pantomiming:
- First, indicate to your team whether you're going to mime the title of a movie, book, or TV show (see below).
- Next, indicate how many words are in the title by holding up that number of fingers.
- Next, indicate which word you want to start acting; hold up three fingers for "Third Word", and so on.
Then: start acting silly!
Tricks of the Trade
- To indicate a movie, pretend to crank an old-fashioned movie camera. To indicate a book, pretend to be reading. For a TV show, draw a square in the air to represent a television screen.
- To divide the word into syllables: lay down x number of fingers on your forearm (where x is the number of syllables.) To begin acting out the first syllable, lay down one finger on your arm and proceed. Repeat for the next syllable, or jump to the third or fourth syllable, laying down the right number of fingers each time.
- When someone calls out a correct word: point at that person and nod your head to indicate "yes!" Traditionally, the actor touches his/her nose, meaning "on the nose", but you need to make sure that all players understand that gesture!
- "Sounds like": cup your hand around your ear.
- "Little word": bring your thumb and index fingers close together. The people guessing should now call out every little word that comes to mind ("on", "in", "the", "and," etc.) until you gesticulate wildly to indicate the right word.
- "Longer version of the word": pretend to stretch an elastic band.
- "Shorter version of the word": chop with your hand.
- "Close, keep guessing!": frantically wave hands to keep the guesses coming.
- "Whole phrase at once": sweep your arms in a big circle to indicate "whole thing."
- Past tense: wave your hand downwards behind your back.
Timeline
How good are you with history?
Do you know which came first – gun powder or the clock?
I can’t say that I ever loved studying history in school. But I’ve really enjoyed playing Timeline – a fun family card game all about setting historical events in their proper place.
How to play Timeline
Timeline is a simple card game. Correctly determine where each of your cards go in the Timeline and you’ll win. The tricky part is making that determination.
Every player is dealt a starting hand of cards. On each double-sided card is a historical event. It could be an invention, a discovery, a famous work, or a creation and such. On one side is just the name and an image of the item. On the other side is the same information but with the year that the item was made, discovered, or took place. The cards are dealt so players don’t see the side of the cards with the year printed on it.
One card is then turned over in the center of the table so the year is shown. In turn, players select a card from their hand and chose where they think it should go in the timeline. The player places the card in the timeline where they think it goes, then they flip it over to show the year. If they were correct, the card stays in place and the next player takes a turn. If the card is in the wrong place, it’s discarded and the player takes another card from the draw stack to add to their hand.
The first player to get rid of all their cards wins.
At the start of the game the choices are rather simple. Does your card go before or after the initial card laid out? But as more cards are played, the options and choices get more complex.
For such a simple game, we love how much discussion it generates while playing.