Educational Games and Activities for Primary
School Children
The art of teaching is the art of awaking the natural curiosity of young minds for
the purpose of satisfying it afterwards. (Anatole France)
Motivation is the willingness of a person to exert high levels of effort to satisfy
some individual need.
Learners are engaged if they:
-are interested in the topic of the content;
-want to understand and do more;
- feel they can understand and do more.
Teacher’s Role in the Engagement
 If we want to encourage real communication between students, we should
move away from our traditional roles of controller and organizer give them a chance
to practice free talk.
 Teach children with encouragement and they will learn confidence.
 Teacher’s responsibility to be “comprehensible” not the learner to comprehend.
 Maximise opportunities for unconscious learning.
 Learning does not require reward or punishment.
It’s more than a game. It’s an institution. ( Thomas Hughes)
Play, play, for your locks will grow grey. ( Ch.S.Calverley)
Гра – це величезне світле вікно, через яке духовний світ дитини вливається в
життєдайний потік уявлень, понять про навколишній світ. Гра – це іскра, що
розпалює вогонь кмітливості та допитливості. (В.О.Сухомлинський)
It is well known that small children learn through games, tales, poems and
other different activities that motivate them.
A child is one head higher than he really is in a game.
Games help to make our complicated learning process
 more easier,
 more effective,
 more comfortable.
Multiple Intelligences
Linguistic
Logical-mathematical
Musical
Visual
Kinesthetic
Interpersonal
Intrapersonal
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Up-to date Game
1 Team Games
2 Drama Games
3Memory Games
4 Guessing Games
5Table Games
6 Creating the Rule Games
7 Action Game
Action Games
It’s a good for the kinesthetic learners who need to be active in the class.
Action games involve both left and right-brained learning. It is very memorable. It is
really helps to combine language and movements.
Finger Games “ Ten Little Soldiers”, “This is my little house”, “I have two
eyes…”
Table Games
Table games work well with mixed abilities classes. Top pupils can do the class
work so quickly and be naughty then. “ If your kids are not quiet give them the
rocket”. The rockets are the team games.
Phonetic Games
Rhyme
Divide into two groups. Your task is to match the words in the first line with words
in the second line that rhyme. Read the pairs of words aloud.
Run- fun
Go-so
See-me
Come –mum
Mouse-house
Sound Right
Divide into three groups. A pupil of each team is to take one card with a verb, read
the verb and place it according of the verb ending. For every correct placing the
group gets one point. Off we go.
s
z
iz
Verbs gets, reads, stands, watches, does, dresses, skates, swims, sings.
Grammar Games
Broken Sentence
There are three teams. Each team has got a broken sentences. Your task is to make
a correct full sentence. Mind the word order in affirmative, negative and interrogative
sentences. For each correct sentence the team gets up one point.
f.e. 1.go, does, Malvina, not, every day, to school
2.do, What, in the, you, evening, do
3 bedrooms, are, in our house, There, three
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Mixed Verbs
The teacher has got two lists of verbs forms. One for regular verbs and another for
irregular verbs. And then mixed them up. Team One is to make the list of regular
verbs, Team Two – the list of irregular verbs.
( ran, opened, played, did, came, was, liked, had, got, went, asked, saw, blew,
visited)
Much or Many
Pupils take different words from the box and choose the right adverb to them:
much or many.
Words: water, milk, apple, bread, butter, salt, tea, banana, onion.
Lexical Games
Guessing Games
At the Zoo
The cage is empty. The animal hid. Let’s ask the Director of the zoo some
questions to find out what animal lives here.
Is it a wild or domestic animal?
Is it big or little?
What colour is it?
Where does it live?
What does it like to eat?
What can it do?
What Is This?
Is it a book,( pen, pencil, ruler)?
Is it a bed, (sofa, shelf, chair, table)?
Who Is This?
Is it a boy?
Is he tall or short?
What colour is his hair?
His face is oval, isn’t it?
Snowball
I have a pencil.
I have a red pencil.
I have a thick red pencil.
Buying words
Divide the class into two teams. Show cards with different words. One of team
buys colour, other buys the parts of the body. The winner is the group, which bought
more words to the topic.
(cards with pictures of the parts of the body (leg, hand, head, ear, eye, mouth, lip )
and colours ( white, blue, yellow, red, pink, brown)
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Hidden Words
 Some names of animals are hidden among the letters. Find them and then read
aloud. Who will be the first
Abcatdtigerdefroghvelephantnbparrotjashoursekme
 Make as many words as you can from the given one.
f.e.drawing – draw, win, in, wing
Odd one out
Bellow are two groups of words. Find the word that differs from all other in each
group.
Ruler, pencil, rubber, pen, dress, exercise-book, book.
Jump, open, write, picture, sing, dance, sit, draw.
Lotto
Every pupil has a card for play. The teacher names the numbers. Look if there is
this number on your card.
Chainwords
Use the last letter of the previous word and make another word.
f.e. game-elephant-two-on-not-table
Role Plays
Wide and systematic use role-play is one more way of stimulating the
communicative motivation. The pupils are given various social and interpersonal
roles. Using visual aids also helps me to motivate students’ speaking, to develop their
abilities, talents and imagination. To aid pupils’ imagination costumes and some
decorations can be made.
 Morning at the Department Store.
- In the Manager’s room.
- At the working place.
- At the Directory.
- At the counter.
 At the birthday party.
 Fragments from the fairy tales.
Bibliography.
1.Німчук Г.Б. Розважально-пізнавальні ігри на уроках англійської мови.
Англійська мова і література. №28, 2003.
2.Чепурна М.В. Рольова гра – один з основних засобів особистісно
орієнтованого навчання. Англійська мова і література. №22-23, 2006.
3. Нижник Н.Н. Reaching out to children. Англійська мова і література. №25,
2008.
4. Терехова Л.В. Ігри на уроках англійської мови. Англійська мова і
література. № 32, 2006.
5. Анікєєва І.П. Гра на уроках англійської мови. Англійська мова і література.
№ 19-21, 2006.
6.Douglas Allan Confused and Reluctant Minds. English. № 20, 2006.
7. Kireieva N. Communicative Motivation. English. № 9, 2006.
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