Days of the Week Games

8/14/2019 Days of the Week Games

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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'sMonday."

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"
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mini-card wins the round/game.

Game idea 2:

Week- 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 childre n'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
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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
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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 on e 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
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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 3letters. 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.


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Documents

Days of the Week Games