Making Primary School French Fun

Primary School French Games & Ideas

This site is a collection of games and ideas for teaching French to primary school aged children.

The word Genki is a Japanese word meaning "Energetic, exciting, full of life" and Japan is where many of these ideas originated, on the GenkiEnglish.com website. They have become so popular that the Daily Yomiuri newspaper said GenkiEnglish was "Taking Primary Schools by Storm".

I'll keep updating this page, so if you have requests or feedback, please get in touch!

Be genki,

Richard

Games for Teaching French (or even Spanish)

These are great games for teaching French, just change the target language to be whatever you are teaching!
Some of these games make references to the Genki English songs, which I don't have available in French yet, but the games work almost as well without them.

Conversation French Games - simply change the target language to the French you are teaching

• Doctor, Doctor! (for practicing parts of the body!)
• Timebomb (numbers and brain power)
• Koala Game ("s'il vous plait" and "merci" practice!)
• Harry Potter - ( for verbs and commands)
• Balloon Game (great review game, colours, animals, anything)

• Tower Game! (good for adding a bit of motivation!)
• Stopwatch game  (simple scoring game)
• Bargaining  (fun numbers and "C'est combien?" practice)
• Do You have....?   Target language: "Avez vous ...?", "Voila!" 

• Telephone Game  Target language : Any Conversation,  "Je m'appelle" "Ca va?" etc. 
• What do you like? Bingo Target language: ,"J'aime..." 
• What Time is it Mr Wolf?  (Quelle heure est-il?)
• Valentine's Broken Hearts Game
• Warm Up Game  Target: Greetings, verbs, commands 

Most popular primary school games

• Island Hopping - picture card review game
• How old are you? GenkiEnglish Bingo!
• I like everything(any conversation)
• I like pink fish (colours and adjectives)

• Dice Game
• What did you say? Game

• Shiritori (great for Junior High warm up)
• English Passports (Simply change to be a "French Passport"!)

Vocab practice games - Simply choose any target French you like

• Sticky Fingers Game (very easy, no preparation)
• Ostrich Game  (2 people at a time battle game!)

• Newspaper Sumo (Great for questions, a bit rough, but fun!)
• Hoops Game!
• The Group Game (Great for big groups)
• The Hammer Game!  (bit like "English tennis")
• Fishing Game   (fun, big game)
• Leapfrog Game !   (no preparation team game, children need to know the "Rock, Paper, Scissors")
• Body Building Game  (good scoring system)
• String Game   (very fun, winding string as you talk, great for any level, even A-level or GCSE)
• Banana Tree  (fun scoring system)

• Karuta  (fast, action running game)
• Ladders Game  (sometimes dangerous, but fun!)
• Ball and Music  (classic "hot potato" game)
• Password Game (easy warm up)
• Grand Prix  (scoring game)
• Ski Game (similar to Grand Prix)
• Jeopardy   (good review favourite)
• Criss Cross   (quick warm up, all ages)
• ATW  (simple, no preparation game)

• Drawing Game   (good group review)
• Mr Bump Game!   (blindfold game)
• Last Person Standing  (similar to criss cross)
• Star Wars: Lightsaber Battle!  (voted no.1 by my kids!) Target language: Left, right, forward, back etc. 
• Monster Drawing Game Target language: Colours, Body Parts, Numbers 
• Fukuwarai (for parts of the face)
• Snakes and ladders (by Neil Maher)
• Playing card Time (by Neil Maher)

Misc.  Games

• Simon Says Please polite version of classic game!
• Yes/No fortune telling Game
• An English Book  Great for 6th graders, simply change to French phrases!
  
• Reindeer Race Game
• Hallowe'en Ideas

Any questions or comments? Please get in touch!

Also have a look at the GenkiMaths.com and GenkiJapan.net websites!

(C) Copyright Richard Graham