Category Archives: Starter
Card Sort
This requires a bit of preparation, but after you’ve made it once it can be re-used. Make a load of cards and cut them up. In pairs, the kids have to sort them. There are lots of options here: Cards … Continue reading
Similarities and Differences
Write down five similarities and five differences between X and Y. Give students a sheet of scrap paper to work on. First to get five correct similarities and differences gets a merit. Five seems like a good number that is … Continue reading
Charades
Another simple activity – prepare a list of cards with key words on. Students come up one at a time and try to act them out without talking. The first student to guess correctly comes up to do the next … Continue reading
Quiz
Very simple way to start or end a lesson. Prepare five to ten quiz questions (or just make them up on the spot) and read them out for the students to answer, either on rough paper or in the backs … Continue reading
True or False?
Nothing special here – just get a list of interesting statements or “facts” to show on the board at the start of the lesson, with the question “True or False?” You could then either get the class to vote on … Continue reading
Taboo
This requires a bit of prep, but it shouldn’t take long. Taboo belongs in the family of games that includes Pictionary and Charades – where the class has to guess what a student is trying to get across. With Taboo … Continue reading
Walk Around Bingo
This is similar to normal bingo but is a bit more active. Instead of students crossing off answers when they get them, they have to find other people in the class who know the answers. The aim is to fill … Continue reading
Bingo!
With the classic version of bingo, students are given bingo cards with different key words on. You then read out questions, and if they have the answer on their card they cross it off. The first person to get a … Continue reading
What’s This Lesson About?
A simple starter to prepare – just search for an image (maybe topical) and display it on the board, with the question: “What’s this lesson about?” It’s up to you how obvious/cryptic you make the image, but whatever you do … Continue reading
Odd One Out
A simple and self-explanatory activity – write some words on the board, give students some thinking time then ask them to pick the odd one out. You can make some obvious, with only one sensible answer, and others more open … Continue reading
Mini Whiteboards
Mini whiteboards are pretty useful at any point in a lesson to check what the kids have learned. In case you haven’t heard of them, they’re small whiteboards that come with a whiteboard pen and an eraser, usually in a … Continue reading
Tedious Link
This is an adaptation of “Dave’s Tedious Link” from the Chris Moyles Show (watch this video if you, like me, don’t actually listen to Radio 1). The idea is for the kids to link together two things in the maximum … Continue reading
What’s the Question?
Write a selection of answers on the board – students then think of questions which lead to those answers. There can be many different questions that lead to each answer. Example Answers: 1. Fossil Fuel 2. The Sun 3. Coal … Continue reading