1

Language games (beginners):
Language games (advanced):
Games for more than one pupil:
3
8
10
Maths games:
Science Experiments:
12
18
Other fun activities:
31
This booklet has been put together by Jacari volunteers, the committee and coordinator, in response to lots of volunteers saying they wanted more ideas to make their lessons fun. Jacari learning aims to be as enjoyable as possible, and the games suggested in this book will help keep your pupil engaged, interested and entertained at the same time as developing and practising academic skills. Some of the activities will take up a whole lesson; some are shorter, perfect for breaking up the lesson or rewarding your pupil at the end of an hour’s hard work! Each game explains the age/level required, but this will vary according to your child’s needs, so have a read through to see what you can adapt for them.
This booklet is a work-in-progress – if you have any ideas for fun games or activities that other volunteers could use, please do email us!
.
2

LANGUAGE GAMES (beginners)
These games are aimed at children who are still learning English (whatever their age) or younger children who are developing their use of language.
Blind Painting
Practising: speaking and listening
Age: 5 to 10
Time: 10-15mins
Materials needed: pen and paper (the bigger the better), blindfold
Instructions:
One player is blindfolded and must draw a picture on the piece of paper.
Speaking game: As he draws, the pupil gives a commentary ‘here is the head, here are the arms...’
Listening game: You describe what has to be drawn ‘Draw a face, with a smiling mouth, and big eyes...’
Grandma’s directions
Practising: speaking and listening
Age: 5 to 8
Time: 10 mins
Materials needed: none (but as much space as possible)
Instructions:
Like Grandmother’s footsteps. The tutor stands with their back to the pupil(s). Call out directions
‘turn left, forwards, backwards’ etc. You can also add adverbs ‘slowly, quickly, cheerfully’ or different verbs ‘hop, skip’ etc, for older children.
At any moment ‘grandma’ can turn around – the pupil(s) must freeze. If ‘Grandma’ sees anyone moving, they go back to the start. The pupil has to make it to ‘grandma ‘and touch her on the back within three goes. They then take the place of ‘grandma’.
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Categories
Practising: speaking, vocabulary
Age: 5 to 12
Time: 10 mins
Materials needed: none
Instructions:
Think of a category of vocabulary that your pupil needs to practice (it could be classroom words or daily routine for beginners, biology words for older students...). Give them a target, e.g. 10 words – they have 10 seconds to names as many words in that category as possible.
After one attempt, show picture cards as prompts to make sure the pupil remembers relevant words, then try again.
For siblings, the less able pupil takes the first 10 seconds, then the more able pupil has another 10 seconds to see what they can add.
Guess the word
Practising: Spelling, speaking
Age: 5 to 8
Time: 10 mins
Materials needed: pen and paper
Instructions:
Using words that your pupil knows, start to spell out a word slowly. Give a clue, e.g. ‘it’s an animal’ and write the first letter, A. Give your pupil a chance to guess an animal beginning with A. If she doesn’t succeed, write the next letter, and so on. 10 points for guessing on the first letter, 5 for on the second, etc. Then swap over (she will need to pick a word she can spell!).
My Auntie went to Paris
Practising: speaking, alphabet, memory
Age: 5 to 12
Time: 10 mins
Materials needed: none
4

Instructions:
Take it in turns to begin the sentence, ‘my auntie went to Paris and she brought me...’. The first person must supply an object beginning with ‘A’ (eg ‘apple’). The next person repeats that, and adds an object beginning with ‘B’ – ‘My auntie went to Paris and brought me an apple, and a bat’. If you forget someone else’s object, or can’t think of one, you lose a life.
Extension
Make it harder by introducing categories, such as ‘animals’, or including adjectives – ‘my auntie went to Paris and brought me an active ant, a boring bear, a colourful cat....’
Make a sentence
Practising: speaking, listening
Age: 5 to 10
Time: 15 mins
Materials needed: none (a bell or buzzer would be good!)
Instructions:
Spell a word out loud. Your pupil must say the word, for one point, and then say the word in a sentence, for another point. With two pupils, they could take turns, or race to buzz in to have a go at answering.
You can specify that the sentence must be in a particular tense, or must be a question – whatever your pupil needs to practise.
Extension: The sentence that the pupil(s) come up with must form part of a story that they make up as they go along.
Story-telling
Practising: speaking, writing
Age: 7 to 11
Time: 20 mins
Materials needed: some pictures
Instructions:
5

Collect a selection of random pictures. Your pupil picks out a picture, and starts the story with a sentence. You then continue the story, with the same picture, or picking out another one. It can be a plausible story, or a silly one! Set the story in the past/present/future to practise tenses.
Writing variation: Give your child some pictures, or a selection of words to include, and get them to write a short story or poem including all of them. Make the words as bizarre a mix as possible!
Matching
Practising: speaking
Age: 5 to 12
Beginners version: 3 or more players; Intermediate version: 2 players +
Time: 20 mins
Materials needed: picture or word flashcards
Instructions:
Think of pairs of words that go together, eg ‘hair’ and ‘hairbrush’, ‘apple’ and ‘pear’, ‘dog’and
‘bone’... (for younger children, use identical pairs). Make some flashcards that have pictures or words of each item. For 2-3 players, about 20 cards (10 pairs) would be good. For older children, have one card with no pair – the player left holding this loses 5 points.
Shuffle the cards and deal them. Each player looks through their hand and puts down any pairs they already have. They could name the items, or use them in a sentence, before getting a point for each pair.
Your pupil tries to win a card off you to match a card they already have, by asking questions
Beginner’s version (identical pairs): If they have a card with an apple, they ask, ‘do you like apples?’.
You say, ‘Yes, I do’, and hand over the card. If they ask for an item you don’t have, it is the next player’s turn – they have to wait for their next turn to ask someone else.
Intermediate version (non-identical pairs): Your pupil must guess what the other item is before they can ask for it. They are not allowed to name the item on their own card. E.g., if their card features a hairbrush, they can’t ask, ‘does your item match a hairbrush?’, but they can ask ‘does your item have anything to do with hair?’ ‘is your item part of a human body?’ ‘is your item a comb?’ etc until they guess correctly.
Freeze!
Practising: listening
Age: 5 to 10
Time: 5 mins
Materials needed: none
6

Instructions:
Your pupil(s) walk around the room while you tell a story or sing a song. Whenever you say a specified word or phrase, they must freeze (or sit down, or clap). It could be a particular word, like
‘dog’, it could be a class of words, ‘animals’, or it could be a grammar point – when you use the past tense, or when you use an adjective... If they don’t spot it, they lose a life. With two or more pupils, the one who loses their lives first must do a forfeit. For one pupil, if they are still going by the end of the story, you do the forfeit – if not, they do.
Tongue Twisters
Practising: listening
Age: 7 to 15
Time: 5 mins
Materials needed: none
Instructions:
Tongue twisters are great even for good English speakers to practise their pronunciation.
Here are some traditional ones to practise:
She sells sea shells by the sea shore.
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.
Unique New York, New York’s unique.
Red lorry, yellow lorry. A proper copper coffee pot.
Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear, Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair, Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t very fuzzy, was he?
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
A woodchuck would chuck all the wood a woodchuck could chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood.
The sixth sick Sheik's sixth sheep is sick.
[Sometimes described as the hardest tongue-twister in the English language.]
Extension ideas:
1.
Say the tongue twister out loud as a monotone, or give it written with no punctuation. Can your pupil work out the meaning and add in the punctuation?
2.
Give the tongue twister as an anagram – can they work it out?
3.
Get your pupil to make up their own tongue twister, using sounds they find difficult to say
7

LANGUAGE GAMES (advanced)
For children with good spoken English, these games tackle other aspects of language, such as spelling and general knowledge
Anagrams!
Practising: Spelling
Age: 6 to 12
Time: 10-15mins
Materials needed: sets of letters in plastic bags
Instructions:
Print out some appropriate words in large type, and cut up the letters. Put the letters for each word in a separate bag. You could also put a sticker on the bag with a clue of what the word is.
Your pupil must solve the anagram and shout out the word. They could do this timed, race against you, or race each other (or team up to race against you).
Extension: Mix up the letters from several words (pictures or clues could help them know which words they’re looking for!).
Boggle
Practising: Spelling
Age: 7 to 16
Time: 15mins
Materials needed: sets of letters, or pre-drawn grid
Instructions:
Draw a grid, and place the letters for a long word, or two words in it at random. Pupils list as many words as they can find in the letters in a set amount of time. Each letter can only be used once in each word. Your pupil can say these to you, or write them down. You can also give clues to help them.
To practise specific vocab, ask children to look for eg animals in the grid
CLOA
8

GNRH
DETI - contains dog, cat, lion, hen, rat, goat, tiger...
You can help younger children with pictures of the animals.
Extension
For older children, official boggle includes the rule that the letters must connect in a chain:
B
T
I
S
P
G
A
H
E
P
O
A
N L T R
(this makes categories very difficult, unless you plan the letters carefully!)
Official boggle scoring (but feel free to make up your own!)
3 1
4
5
1
2
6
7
3
5
8+ 11
Categories (2)
Practising: speaking, vocab, Spelling
Age: 7 to 14
Time: 10mins
Materials needed: none
Instructions:
A good warm-up game for revising vocabulary for a particular topic. Pick a category (‘places’,
‘clothes’, ‘living things’...). You say a word out loud that belongs in that category. The next player says a word that begins with the last letter of your word. For example, ‘tree’, ‘elephant’, ‘tiger’,
‘rose’.. If the player can’t think of a word, repeats a word, or it doesn’t belong in that category, they lose a life.
9

Animal, Vegetable or Mineral / 20 questions
Practising: speaking,
Age: 8 to 16
Time: 10mins
Materials needed: none
Instructions:
Think of an object or (famous) person. Your pupil must find out what you are thinking of by asking questions – the questions must be answered by ‘yes’ or ‘no’ – with the exception of the first question, ‘Is it an animal, a vegetable or a mineral?’ (you might need to explain these categories, or skip this stage!). If they get it right within 20 questions, they win. Then swap over.
Extension:
Your pupil must correctly answer a (unrelated) general knowledge question (e.g. What is the capital of France) before they are allowed to ask you a question
Don’t forget the classics for all levels! I spy; hangman; noughts and crosses; scissors, paper, stone;
Simon says; word-searches and crossword; etc are great for an end-of-lesson bit of fun!
GAMES FOR MORE THAN ONE PUPIL
Most of the games in this book will work for one pupil or more than one pupil – either the pupil plays with the teacher, or with each other, with the teacher helping or observing. These games, however, require at least three participants, so are suitable if you teach siblings.
Hot-seat
Practising: speaking and listening
Age: 8 to 14
Time: 10-15mins
Materials needed: flashcards
Instructions:
One student sits with his/her back to the other player(s). The teacher displays a word or a flash cards. Other students describe what is on the card to enable the student guess what it is. For higher
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level students teachers can make hot-seat more challenging by writing a number of TABOO WORDs on the board. For example if a teacher shows the students a flash card of a HAIRDRESSER, taboo words could be CUT & HAIR. Students cannot use these two words to describe hairdresser. This forces the students to find other ways of describing the word without the taboo words.
Pictionary
Practising: speaking and listening
Age: 8 to 14. Works best with 3 or more pupils.
Time: 15mins
Materials needed: pen, paper, timer
Instructions:
Prepare a pile of words, and place them facedown. If there are four of you, split into two pairs (you pair with the weakest child). Set the timer – one member of the pair must try to draw as many of the words as possible, while the other guesses. Then the next pair goes; then back to the first pair, but drawer and guesser swap over. Count up how many words each team has collected at the end.
If there are only three of you, the children take turn to draw while the other child and you guess – the drawer collects the words that have been guessed. If the children play fair, you won’t need to join in much, but if they are deliberately not guessing correctly, you’ll have to help out!
Consequences
Practising: writing, creativity!
Age: 8 to 16. Works best with 3 or more players
Time: 30+ mins
Materials needed: pens and paper for everyone
Each person takes a piece of paper, and writes a boy’s name, They then fold the piece of paper over, so the writing can’t be seen, and pass it to the next person in a circle. With the next piece of paper, , write a girl’s name. This continues, following this pattern:
Boy’s name
Girl’s name
Met at: (location)
He said to her:
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She said to him:
The consequence was: (what happened next)
The world said:
Then pass the completely folded-up paper to the next person, who unrolls it and reads it out!
Variations:
Heads, bodies, feet (good for younger kids): the first person draws a head, folding over the paper to reveal only the small lines of the neck, the next person the body, the next the legs & feet. Finally give the picture a name (without looking) and reveal your work of art!
Writing and drawing: The first person writes a short description, e.g. ‘a pig flying’. Pass this on
(without folding). The next person draws a picture of this description, then folds over the writing, leaving only the picture visible. The next person writes what they think the picture is, folds over the picture – the next draws this description....and so on. See if you end up with anything like what you started!
Poetry game: (good for older kids): The first person writes a line of poetry. The second writes a line that rhymes with the first, and another line. Fold over the rhyming couplet, leaving the third line of the poem visible. Pass on, and repeat. When you reach the end of the sheet of paper, give the poem a title. Then read out your works of literary art!
MATHS GAMES
Great for revision and practice, and for encouraging the most reluctant of mathematicians!
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Maths Snap
This is an energetic and competitive maths game that can be adapted for the age and ability-level of your pupil(s). It is best for developing mental calculation skills and confidence, but can be adapted for more complex problems.
Players: 2 +
Time: 5-30 minutes
Language level: Basic-intermediate
Age: Best for 5-11 age-group, but can be adapted to include secondary school students
Equipment: pen, paper, scissors
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- -
Before your lesson, prepare approximately 10 'sets' of maths problems, with the problems in each set having the same answer (e.g. one set could be 5x4=? 81-61=? and 10+10=?, or 5(4-3),=?
(1.25)(4)=?and 50/10=?). There should be 2-4 problems in each set. Make a separate card for each maths problem, leaving the other side blank.
The game is played in a manner similar to Snap, but with slight modifications. With all the cards facedown in a pile, place one card face up on the table, and leave about 5 seconds for your pupil(s) to calculate the answer. Then, place another card face up, beside it. After 5 seconds, place a fresh card on the first pile (covering the original card), and then do the same for the second pile, and so on. If the two cards match (i.e. the solution is the same for both), the pupil who spots this and calls 'snap!' will get two points. You might want to introduce a rule whereby pupils lose one point for calling snap incorrectly, although this will very much depend on the pupils involved!
The cards should be shuffled periodically, to make sure that different combinations of equivalent cards come up.
Contributed by: Dani Quinn
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FRACTION DOMINOES
Players: 2 +
Time: 5-15 minutes
Language level: intermediate
Age: Best for 5-11 age-group, but can be adapted to include secondary school students
Equipment: pen, paper, scissors
Before the lesson, prepare 10-20 ‘dominoes’, with a picture of a fraction on one side, and a numerical fraction on the other. Make sure there are matching pairs, but not on the same domino!
Eg:
2
/
8
2
/
3
Each player gets 5 dominoes, the rest are put in a central pile. The youngest player goes first, putting down one domino . Each player in turn then puts down a domino that matches one end. If a player can’t go, s/he draws another domino from the pile. The player who puts down their last domino
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shouts ‘domino!’ and is the winner! (If you are unable to finish your hand, the winner is the person holding the fewest dominoes).
Can also be adapted to practise other teaching points – multiplication and division, or letters and pictures...
3x4
=
20/2
=
5x2
=
8x3
= f C
*********************************************************************
Another dominoes game: Tens
Players: 2-4
Time: 20 minutes
Language level: Basic-intermediate
Age: 7 and up
Equipment: one set of normal, numbered dominoes (available from Jacari library)
Dominoes are shuffled face down on the table, and players draw one domino each, starting with the youngest player. The first player to find the double six tile will start the game. All withdrawn tiles, including the double six, are replaced, and each player draws seven new dominoes. The player who drew the double six goes first, placing a single domino. If the spots on each end of that domino add to 10, the player scores 10 points. The player to his left takes the next turn, placing one domino at either end of the first one, matching the number of dots on that end, eg. three-six:six-four or fourfive: five-three. If the numbers at the end of the chain add to ten as in four-three:three-six, then the player who placed the last domino wins 10 points. Each player continues to place a domino in turn, aiming to make the ends of the chain add to ten points. If a player does not have a domino with an end that matches the either existing end of the chain, then he must take another domino from the pile of spares. If this has one end which matches an end of the chain, he must place the tile, if he does not, then he misses a go. The game continues until all players have used all their dominos and all the spares have been taken from the pile (note: this differs from normal dominoes rules). The winner is the player who has scored the most points.
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This works well to get children to recognise quickly pairs of numbers which add to ten - make the child act as score-keeper, and ask them after each domino is placed whether that player has won any points.
This game can also easily be adapted for other mathematical facts, e.g. aim to get the ends to add to multiples of three and five (and score points on how many times three or five goes into that number e.g. 12 scores 4, 15 scores 3).
Contributed by: Katie Evans
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Buzz Fizz!
This is a fun game that can be as easy or as hard as you like, as long as you know some of your timetables!
Players: 2 +
Time: 5-10 minutes
Language level: Basic-intermediate (must know at least 3x table)
Age: 7 +
Equipment: none
You choose a timetable you want your children to learn, for example 3 timetable. Sat in a circle, the first player says “1”, the second “2”... However, when the number a child must say is in the 3 timetable, s/he must say buzz instead of the number. If one pupil gets it wrong, for example if they say buzz for a number that is not in the 3 timetable or if they don’t say buzz when it is
6,9,12,15,18..., they get eliminated.
If your pupils are good at the game, you can add the 5 timetables. This is the same principle, but now you also say ‘fizz’ for multiples of 5. So it would now go, 1, 2, buzz, 4, fizz, buzz, 7...14, fizzbuzz!
The great advantage to this game is that you can adapt it to the level of your pupil. If they only know the 3 timetable, you can only do buzz. If you need them to learn 4 timetable, you can invent a new word or use fizz instead.
NB: don’t have the same number of players as the timetable you are testing. For example, if you have only 3 players do not choose to do 3 timetable otherwise it will always be the same person having to say buzz.
Contributed by: Adrianne Montgobert
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15

Fifteen up!
Players: 2 +
Time: 15 minutes
Language level: intermediate +
Age: 7 +
Equipment: You need a piece of paper/card with a 3x3 square grid drawn on it, and number cards the same size as the grid squares for 1-9.
The number cards are shuffled and placed face down on the table. The youngest player takes the card from the top of the pile, and chooses where to place it on the grid. The player to her left follows, taking the top card and choosing where to place it. Players are aiming to make a line of numbers - diagonally, horizontally or vertically - which sums to 15, and the first player to place a number on the grid that achieves this is the winner.
With more number cards, you can change the game to make the aim summing to 20, to 30 etc. to make it more or less difficult according to the child's needs.
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Mental maths Calculations:
Players: 2
Time: 10 minutes
Language level: advanced
Age: 9 +
Equipment: a dice
Both pick a number between 0 and 100. Then, in turns, each player names a calculation: "If you can, multiply by two", "If you can, divide by 3", "If you can, take away 50" etc.
You can NOT do the calculation if:
- the number would exceed 100 (+,x) or
- become lower than 0 (-), or
- would be other than an integer (/).
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BOTH players do the operation, and don't tell each other if they can or what the new number is.
After each turn we throw dice – if a six is thrown, the game is stopped and both players reveal their final numbers. The highest number wins at the end.
*********************************************************************
Other ideas:
Dot-to-dot pictures: great for younger children practising numbers!
Making graphs: collecting the data for making graphs/charts is fun and interactive! Try counting different coloured cars passing by; different colour sweets in a packet; likes and dislikes of family members....
Board games: Try adapting the format of famous gameshows, but replace the general knowledge questions with maths questions. It’s just mental maths – but a lot more fun!
For one pupil, try Who wants to be a Millionaire? - the questions start easy and get harder, you have to get 10 questions right in sequence to win the prize!
For more than one pupil, try the Weakest Link – in the first round, they play with each other, trying to get as many questions right as possible in one minute, ‘banking’ points as they go. In the second round, it’s five questions each – whoever gets the most right wins the points.
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************************************************************
EASY SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS
***********************************************************
Doing a science experiment is a great way of having a fun, interactive lesson that will spark your pupil’s interest.
A few things to think about:
1) Time: some experiments can be done in one lesson. Others will require leaving things to be observed after a period. If this is the case, you may be able to leave the object in a space at the child’s house, or it may be easier to have something transportable that you can bring each week to be inspected.
2) Equipment: It’s probably best to bring everything you need, unless you know that the family have the item and will be happy for you to use it
3) Mess: Avoid anything that will be disruptive.
4) Learning point: your child will benefit the most if they understand what they discover through the experiment! So make sure you know the learning point, and you can explain it clearly.
Most of the ‘experiments’ described here are really demonstrations. To make a real experiment, you need to be testing a theory. Try varying something within the demonstration, to see if it makes a difference. For example, test which liquids are the most dense by trying the same objects in each; try growing seeds in light and dark places, or with and without water. Ideas for making a real experiment are included in some examples, but use your imagination!
Think about ‘fair tests’. A science experiment should include the following stages: (whether you chose to write them down, or just talk about them)
1) A hypothesis – What do you think is going to happen? Why?
2) Planning – how will the experiment be conducted?
3) ‘Fair tests’ – how will you make sure the test is fair? Why is this important?
4) Results – gather your observations
5) Explanation – why did these results happen?
6) Conclusion – was your hypothesis right? Why/why not?
(useful websites: www.kids-science-experiments.com
, www.fizzicseducation.com.au
, www.sciencebuddies.org
– lots of ideas for science projects)
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Magic Colour Breakdown
Time: 30 mins
Age: 7 – 10
Set up: easy
Teaching point: Chromatography – separating the components of a mixture. Colours are made from different colours mixed together.
Equipment:

Water
• Blotting paper (letter size or smaller – try a stationary shop)
• Bread Baking tin (small) or a dish with an edge
• 4-8 different coloured felt tip pens
• Tape
Instructions:
1.
Line up your blotting paper and the lids of the felt pens that you will use this experiment.
2. Leaving around half an inch from the bottom of the blotting paper press each colour felt-tip pen down on the blotting paper gently so that a dot has formed.
3. Tape your blotting paper to the top of your baking tin making sure that there is a bit of space left at the bottom so that you can pour some water in. Leave about half an inch from the bottom edge of the tin.
4. Slowly pour in some water until it just reaches the bottom of the blotting paper - making sure that the coloured markings (dots) do not dip into the water.
5. Watch to see what happens to all the colours as the water is being absorbed by the blotting paper.
6. Keep an eye on the circles that you coloured to see what happens as the water travels up the blotting paper and reaches your markings.
How many different colours can you see? You may think that your marker is green, but when you see the break down you can actually see the different colours that make up the colour green.
Floating and sinking experiments
Floating Orange
Time: 10 mins
Age: 7 – 10
Set up: easy
Teaching point: density causes objects to float or sink
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Equipment:
A bowl
water
an orange
Instructions:
1.
place the orange into the bowl of water? What happens? Can you make it sink?
2.
Take out the orange and peel it.
3.
Place the peeled orange back into the water. What happens? Why?
The orange sinks because the orange peel is full of trapped air pockets, therefore making the orange light for its size- i.e. it has low density, so it floats. When you remove the peel (including the air pockets) the orange weighs a lot for its size, making it high density. Then it sinks because the orange is denser than the water.
Bobbing Raisins
Time: 10 mins
Age: 7 – 10
Set up: easy
Teaching point: density causes objects to float or sink
Equipment:
clear glass/jar
carbonated drink
a few raisins
Instructions:
1.
Pour the drink into the glass jar
2.
Drop in the raisins and observe what happens!
The bobbing up and down works because the bubbles of carbon dioxide gas in the drink are much less dense than the drink or the raisins.
-Raisins are denser than the carbonated drink, so they will sink.
-Gas bubbles attach to the wrinkles on the raisins.
-When the raisins are covered with the bubbles they become less dense than the drink, so they start to rise.
-The gas bubbles start bursting and then the raisins become denser than the drink, so they sink again.
Once the raisins start bobbing up and down, they will continue to rise and fall for about an hour.
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Three layer float
Time: 15 mins
Age: 7 – 10
Set up: moderate - easy
Teaching point: different liquids and objects have different densities.
Equipment:
Tall clear glass/jar
Water
Oil (vegetable or similar)
honey
a cork
a grape
a coin
Instructions:
1. Fill one third of the cup with honey.
2. Fill the next third with oil.
3. Fill the last third with water.
4. Wait for all three substances to settle.
5. Carefully drop in the coin, then the grape and then the cork.
Each of the three liquids have different densities, therefore making three separate layers – the oil floats on the honey, and the water floats on the oil. All three items (grape, coin and cork) have different densities and therefore float in separate layers according to their density. The most dense falls through water and oil, but floats in honey, at the bottom. The least dense floats in the water, at the top.
Make this an experiment: Find four or five different liquids in the house and put each into an identical paper cup. Predict which you think is the most dense. Then find a few objects of different weights (the cork, grape and coin will do) and see which will float in each liquid. Draw up a table of your results – can you see which liquid floated the heaviest object? Can you put the liquids in order of density?
Coloured Flowers
Time: 10 mins to arrange – leave and look again a few days later
Age: 5 - 8
Set up: very easy
Teaching point: Flowers need water to live. Flowers draw water up through their stems
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Equipment:
Water
Scissors
Food colouring – two or more colours
Two or more jars/ plastic cups
Two or more white carnations or celery sticks (with leaves)
Instructions
1.
Fill each cup with water
2.
Add a few drops of food colouring to each cup (red and blue work well)
3.
Cut the end of the stem at an angle
4.
Put a flower in each cup
5.
Leave for a few days
The food colouring will be sucked up the stem along tiny vessels, and the petals/leaves will change colour. As well as absorbing water from the atmosphere (air) through their leaves, plants suck water up through their stems, from their roots. If you used the celery stalk for the above experiment you could cut the stalk and see that the little holes inside are coloured. Which colour is sucked up the quickest?
Magnets
You can buy a magnet from a toyshop, or use an old fridge magnet
Testing the pull
Time: 30 mins
Age: 8 - 12
Set up: easy
Teaching point: is the force of magnetism strong enough to travel through things?
Equipment:
A magnet
A paper-clip
Water, in a clear glass
A piece of cardboard
A ruler (plastic or wooden)
Instructions:
1. Draw a maze on a piece of cardboard. Can you guide a paper-clip through the maze?
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Place the paperclip on the top of your cardboard with the maze facing up. Place the magnet under your cardboard where the paperclip is resting on top. Now move your magnet around and see what happens.
2. Can you rescue a paper-clip from a glass of water without getting wet?
Fill you glass with water and drop the paper-clip inside the glass. Take the magnet and place it on the outside of the glass close to the magnet and see if you can pull the paper-clip to the side of the glass and up to the top (without getting wet).
3. Will the paper-clip climb the ruler? (You can use a plastic or a wooden ruler).
Hold your ruler so that one end is resting on a flat surface and hold the other end up at a angle.
Place the magnet on the under side of the ruler (the end that it resting on the flat surface) and then place the paperclip on the top of the ruler (again, the end of the ruler that is resting on the flat surface). Move the magnet to go up to the top end of the ruler.
How magnets pull: Magnets pull on magnetic materials, such as iron, nickel, cobalt and steel, but pull through non-magnetic things, like cardboard, glass, plastic and wood. Magnets can even travel through water.
Jobs of Magnets:
Did you know that magnets hold the fridge door closed?
Did you know that magnets are used to lift cars in a scrapyard?
Did you know that cranes with giant magnets are used to pick/pull out metals from landfills?
Did you know that magnets fasten hand bags?
Make this an experiment: test the strength of different magnets by seeing how many paperclips they will pick up. Or test which objects contain iron by seeing which are attracted to magnets.
Making needle-magnets
Time: 15 mins
Age: 10 - 14
Set up: moderate
Teaching point: Magnetism can be passed from magnets to other magnetic materials so they become magnets too.
Equipment:
A magnet
Two or three sewing needles
A couple of pins or paperclips
Instructions:
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1. Hold a needle by the eye and stroke it gently 30 times with your magnet, in the same direction.
Do the same with the second needle, making sure that you use the same end of the magnet.
2. Test your needle-magnets on some pins before you use them for other experiments.
Now use your needle-magnets for this experiment...
Pointing North
Time: 15 mins
Age: 10 - 14
Set up: moderate
Teaching point: The Earth acts like a giant magnet and attracts other magnets towards its north pole.
Equipment:
Two needle-magnets
A bowl
Water
Two small pieces of paper (or cork)
A compass (optional)
Instructions:
Steps:
1. Float a small piece of paper in a bowl of water and rest a needle-magnet on it. When the needle is still mark which way it points.
2. Now do the same with the second needle-magnet. Both needles should point the same direction, which is along a north-south line.
3. Check that it is North using your compass, or by the sun (the sun always sets in the West, so if it is afternoon, the sun will be in the West. North is 90 degrees clockwise from the West.)
Chemical reactions
Making a volcano
Time: 45 mins
Age: 10 - 15
Set up: difficult (potentially messy!)
Teaching point: An acid plus an alkaline makes a chemical reaction, which gives off a gas.
Equipment:
a baking tin, cake tin or other large container
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newspaper and old clothes
plasticine, or plastic volcano
baking powder
vinegar
squirt of washing up liquid
red food colouring (optional)
Instructions:
1.
Clear a surface and cover with newspaper (or go outside). Make sure your pupil is wearing old clothes.
2.
Place the baking tray on the surface. Model a volcano out of plasticine (or use a pre-made plastic one – usually available from WHSmith etc).
3.
Make a hole in the top of the volcano
4.
Put in a spoonful of baking powder
5.
Add a couple of drops of food colouring
6.
Add a couple of drops of washing up liquid (this creates bubbles – leave out if you want to study the chemical equation more carefully!)
7.
Pour in some vinegar, and stand back!
What happened? Acetic Acid (Vinegar) + Baking Soda (Sodium Bicarbonate) = Water + Carbon
Dioxide Gas + Sodium Acetate, or:
HC2H3O2 + NaHCO3 = H2O + CO2 + NaC2H3O2
The carbon dioxide gas escapes, causing the ‘explosion’. This is why baking powder is used in cakes – when the cake is cooked, the powder reacts and the gas tries to escape, making lots of little bubbles inside the cake – which is what makes the cake rise and become light and yummy!
Real volcanoes are quite different – the magma beneath the earth builds up pressure, until it causes an eruption.
Yeast Experiment
Time: 15 mins to set up, then leave for 20mins
Age: 10 - 15
Set up: moderate
Teaching point: Yeast is alive, and gives off cardon dioxide
Equipment:
a packet of yeast (available from bakeries or supermarkets)
a small, clean, clear plastic bottle
warm water
1 teaspoon of sugar
A small balloon
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Instructions:
1.
Fill the bottle with one inch of warm water (cold water makes the yeast inactive)
2.
Add all of the yeast, and swirl around until it has dissolved.
3.
Add the sugar, and swirl around some more. Because yeast is a living thing, it needs food for energy, to be active
4.
Blow up the balloon a few times to stretch it, then attach it to the neck of the bottle
5.
Leave the bottle in a warm place for 20mins. What happens to the balloon?
Yeast is a microscopic fungus organism. As the yeast eats the sugar, it releases a gas called carbon dioxide. The gas fills the bottle and then fills the balloon as more gas is created. This is how the
‘holes’ in bread are made. When bread is made, the yeast becomes spread out in flour. Each bit of yeast makes tiny gas bubbles and that puts millions of bubbles (holes) in our bread before it gets baked. When the bread gets baked in the oven, the yeast dies and leaves all those bubbles (holes) in the bread. Yum.
Make this an experiment: what makes the yeast work best? You can test lots of different things to see what conditions produce the most gas (the biggest balloon). Try putting bottles in rooms with different temperatures, or with different water temperatures. Try different food for the yeast – sugar, syrup, honey, salt...
Shiny Coins
Time: 15 mins
Age: 10 - 15
Set up: easy
Teaching point: chemical reactions around us
Equipment:
Dirty/old copper coins
Lemon juice
Plastic cup
Paper towel
Instructions
1.
Fill the cup/bowl with some lemon juice.
2. Put the dirty copper coins in the juice and let them soak for a few minutes.
3. Remove the coins from the cup/bowl and place on the paper towel.
Oxygen in the air reacts with copper, making a copper oxide coating. This is what makes copper coins dirty. The acid in the lemon juice reacts with the oxide and removes it from the coins – making the copper coin shiny.
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Swirled Milk
Time: 30 mins
Age: 8 - 14
Set up: easy
Teaching point: chemical reactions around us
Equipment:
Food colouring (two or more colours)
Washing up liquid
Shallow dish/pan
Whole milk (room temperature)
Cotton bud/swab
Instructions:
1.
Pour the milk into the dish. The milk needs to be at room temperature. Allow it to settle.
2.
Add a few drops of different coloured food colouring into the milk. Keep the drops close together in the middle of the dish of milk.
3.
Find a clean cotton swab for the next part of the experiment. Predict what will happen when you touch the tip of the cotton swab to the center of the milk. It's important not to stir the mix. Just touch it with the tip of the cotton swab.
4.
Now place a drop of liquid dish soap on the other end of the cotton swab. Place the soapy end of the cotton swab back in the middle of the milk and hold it there for 10 to 15 seconds
5.
Add another drop of soap to the tip of the cotton swab and try it again. Experiment with placing the cotton swab at different places in the milk. Notice that the colors in the milk continue to move even when the cotton swab is removed. What makes the food coloring in the milk move?
6.
Does it work with water instead of milk? Why not?
Milk is mostly water but it also contains vitamins, minerals, proteins, and tiny droplets of fat suspended in solution. Fats and proteins are sensitive to changes in the surrounding solution (the milk).
When you add soap, the weak chemical bonds that hold the proteins in solution are altered. It becomes a free-for-all! The molecules of protein and fat bend, roll, twist, and contort in all directions. The food coloring molecules are bumped and shoved everywhere, providing an easy way to observe all the invisible activity.
There's another reason the colors explode the way they do. Since milk is mostly water, it has surface tension like water. The drops of food coloring floating on the surface tend to stay put. Liquid soap wrecks the surface tension by breaking the cohesive bonds between water molecules and allowing the colors to zing throughout the milk.
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Growing Crystals
Time: 30 mins, then leave for a few days, or one week
Age: 8 - 14
Set up: moderate
Teaching point: salt dissolves into water. When the water evaporates, the salt is left behind.
Equipment:
Salt
Hot water
Spoon
Plastic cup
Food colouring (optional)
Pencil
Short piece of string
Paperclip, or other weight
Magnifiying glass (optional)
1. Place around three teaspoons of table salt into the plastic container.
2. Add a little bit of warm water and a few drops of food colouring and stir until the salt has dissolved.
3. tie the string around the pencil, leaving a piece hanging down. Attach the paper clip to the end of the string.
4. Balance the pencil across the cup, so that the string hangs down into the salt solution.
5. Place the cup in a warm, sunny spot for a few days to allow the water to evaporate.
6. After a few days, look to see if you can see salt crystals on the string (a magnifying glass will help).
When salt dissolves in water, it is not a chemical change. The water pulls the salt atoms apart but the salt molecules stay the same. Heat increases the amount of space available between the water molecules, so hot water can hold more salt molecules than cold water. When the water evaporates, it becomes a gas and rises. Salt doesn’t change state easily, so it stays behind as a solid.
Extension:
You could also make sugar crystals to compare. Follow the steps above, but to make a sugar solution, you will need to add the sugar to boiling water in a pan. Allow the solution to cool down before pouring into the plastic cup. Compare the crystals – are they the same as salt crystals?
When substances change from a liquid or gas to a solid, they can form crystals . In a crystal the molecules of the material lock together in a regular and repeating pattern. If a crystal is allowed to grow undisturbed, it will form regular shapes such as cubes, or hexagon columns. The type of substance and how its molecules interlock determine the shape of the crystal.
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Senses
Sound
Feel the vibration:
Time: 5 mins
Age: 7 - 10
Set up: easy
Teaching point: sound is a vibration
Equipment: A balloon
Instructions:
Blow up the balloon.
Tell your pupil to hold the balloon near to your mouth, placing their hands flat around the balloon.
Talk loudly. Can they feel it?
Next, shout loudly. Does it feel different?
Sound is a vibration that makes the air move. It also makes the balloon move!
String Telephone
Time: 15 mins
Age: 7 - 10
Set up: easy
Teaching point: sound is a vibration that can travel through air or through a solid.
Equipment:
String (about 5 metres)
Two plastic cups or yogurt pots (empty and clean)
Scissors
Instructions:
1.
Make a hole in the bottom of both plastic cups.
2. Thread one end of the string through the bottom of one cup and tie a knot inside the cup.
3. Thread the string through the other cup and tie a knot inside the cup.
4. You hold one cup and your pupil holds the other. Make sure that the string is tight.
5. Whisper into your cup whilst your pupil listens through the other.
The sound of your voice makes the string vibrate, carrying the sound to your friend’s ear.
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Make a hydrophone
Time: 15 mins
Age: 7 - 10
Set up: easy
Teaching point: sound is a vibration that can travel through water.
Equipment:
A plastic 2 litre bottle
A basin/ washing up bowl
Water
Two stones scissors
Instructions:
1) Cut off the base of the plastic bottle.
2) Fill the basin with water, but not to the top.
3) Place the plastic bottle into the water.
4) Put your ear to the top of the bottle.
5) Ask your friend to bang two stones together under the water, near the bottle.
6) Repeat the experiment above the water.
Can sound waves travel through water? Through which does sound travel better, air or water?
Sounds reach our ears by the air being vibrated. Air is squashed and stretched to make sound waves. When sound waves travel through the air the vibrations reach our ears and they make our eardrums vibrate, this then sends a message to our brain and the brain hears the sound.
Sound waves need a material to travel through or they cannot travel from one place to another.
Most sounds we hear have travelled through air. Sound can travel through other material such as liquids and solid – the string is a solid.
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OTHER FUN ACTIVITIES
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Drawing Activities:
My pupil likes to draw, so we usually take a break from reading when she is frustrated to make a picture of what is going on in the story. I've chosen a book of short stories to tackle for this term and was thinking we could do one picture for each and then maybe bind them together at the end as a little book of her own. [We've made illustrated books out of chapter books before, and it's a really fun way to make sure she is retaining what we read, so it might be a nice idea for the activities book you're putting together...]
Contributed by: Ali Austerlitz
You could also make this into a comic strip, with several story panes and speech bubbles to tell the story – good for practising writing in short bursts! (For an example of a story in both narrative and comic-strip format, try the ‘Trailblazers’ books in the Jacari library).
My pupil made a newspaper article, using pictures and words from a football magazine for children, about his football team and their performance this season. Given his interest in football he put a lot of time and effort into this activity and was proud of his achievement at the end.
My pupil was studying Mexico in school and so we made a mask of a Quetzalcoatl using feathers and cardboard and then researched some more about mexico.
World map game:
Pick a country to hide in. Then the other person tries to find the one who's hiding asking questions about the country (e.g. "Is it in Europe?", "Does it share a border with China?" etc). One can extend this by introducing 3 detectives (with choice where to place them in the beginning) that the searcher moves to countries (game "Scotland-Yard"-Style) and introduce transport: Train, Ship, Plane, where each detective has a limited number of tickets each (e.g. 5 Train tickets, allowing to move to a bordering country in one turn, 5 Ship Tickets, allowing one to move to any country that shares water in a turn, 5 Plane Tickets, allowing one to move to any country whatsoever in a turn). As soon as the detectives are in the same country as the hider, they win.
Cooking:
With the parents’ permission, you could try some basic cooking at home. This is great practice of reading recipes, following instructions, and using measurements (you could make it harder by halving/doubling the quantities!). And the end result is always satisfying! It doesn’t have to involve ovens – try making interesting sandwiches, jelly, fridge cookies... (of course, always check allergies/dietary requirements first!).
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Board games
Try adapting a normal board game, such as ludo or snakes & ladders (available from the library, or you could make your own).
For each roll of the dice, each player must answer a question before being allowed to move. Try to make it different for each number, e.g. a easy spelling for 1 or 2, medium for 3 or 4, hard for 5 or 6, or practise maths
1 = addition question
2 = subtraction question
3 = multiplication question
4 = division question
5 = fraction /negatives/shapes question
6 = ‘fun’ question – they can chose their own category.
Other board games are great for developing skills: younger children can practise vocabulary with
Guess Who and strategy with Connect 4; Scrabble is great for spelling and word-building; and of course chess is true brain-training! (all available in the Jacari library).
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