FOOD-ON-A-PAN RACE (a game for children)

Games help vocabulary retention and keep student´s enthusiasm and motivation high. They are also useful when you need to drill vocabulary, allow the time for relaxation when you have finished a major assessment or project and when there is time left in your teaching session or it is the day just before a holiday break.

So, perhaps you need a game to occupy students during the las minutes of a busy day, you want to reward them at the end of a particular productive day or it is a rainy day and everybody has to saty indoors with all that this fact implies.

Have this game prepared in your resource pack. Designed for practising vocabulary related to food, it is appropiate for learners in elementary or primary school.

Game preparation:
Materials.
Each team should have:
-a set of seven paper plates. Choose a different colour for each team, for example, blue/green.
-a pan. A round aluminum tray with a handle made of cardboard, a plastic cylinder or any other kind of material that serves the purpose.
-two sets of pictures. For this game you will need: chesse, pasta, egg, chicken, cake, ice cream, and apple.
-two sets of labels matching the pictures.

Before the game
-Divide the students into two groups: the green team and the blue team (the teams will be named after the colours of the paper plates you have choosen).
-Put two desks some metres apart. On one of the desks spread the blue plates and on the other, the green plates.
-Add a third desk to spread both sets of pictures and labels all mixed up to make the game more active.
-Put the pans next to the plates.

How to play
-In turns, a member of each team takes the pan, goes to the opposite desk, puts a picture with its corresponding label in the pan and goes back to put everything on a plate.
-They are supposed not to touch the pan contents while going from one place to the other. If they drop something on their way, they have to start  from the beginning again.
-The team that prepares all the plates first wins.

Kindergarten
For the little ones, you can transform the game into a vocabulary dictation. Just put the picture cards on the desk. Call out the name of the picture you want them to pick up and put in the pan.

Variants
-This game can be played in two stages. Firstly, using the pictures and adding the labels in a second stage.
-A member of the blue team can call out the name of the picture for a student of the green team to perform the action.

Have in mind that games are important resources for revision, drilling and extra practise. However they are not as effective for learning new material or meaningful work or oral, listening, reading or writing skills. Above all, use them after you have finished other tasks planned for that teaching period in particular.