More Games/Activities for Preschool/Kindergarten ESL Classrooms

Hide-and-Seek

First you have to either make pictures of the words you are studying or get objects of the vocabulary the children are learning. So, for example, if you are studying the words apple, cake, and banana, you either have to bring in pictures of apples, cakes, and bananas, or a real apple, cake, and banana. Pick three children to come up to the front of the classroom and close their eyes. You hide the picture or the object. Then the three children have to find the object while the other children in the class clap and say "Find the _____" (for example: "Find the apple! Find the apple! Find the apple!") until one of the children has found the picture/object. Once the children have found the picture or object, then they have to answer a question about it. Another variation on this is that if they can't find it, then they have to sing a song in English.

When the children get better at this game, you can have another child hide the picture/object instead of you hiding it. The children seem to love this game. Even though only three of the children are really involved at a time, the other children do not get bored as they do in some other games when only a few are participating at one time. The others are interested in the seekers. It works really well.

Yes or No?

Once the children seem to know the vocabulary really well and can make sentences with it, then you can play the yes or no game. You hold up a picture of something that is part of their vocabulary and say something wrong. For example, if you are holding a picture of a kitchen and they should know that, you can say, "This is my bedroom". The children should then all shout, "No, this is my kitchen!". You can have them make head gestures as well, because that is fun for them. When they say yes, they can nod their heads and when they say no, they can shake their head.

Once they understand the game, have a child come up and ask a question that is either correct or not and the other children have to say "Yes...!" or No...!" This game helps the children with constructing full sentences and with understanding positives and negatives as well.