author: Nigel
level: Elementary
target_English: past tense present tense future tense
This game is kind of a verbal passy the parcel game.
Depending on the number of children you need at least one small bag and three pieces of paper for each bag.
Suggestion One:
On the pieces of paper write the following "who had the apple is out", "who has the apple is out", "who will have the apple is out". Then put the paper into a bag. There is no need to put an apple in the bag unless you want to.
Get the children to put their chairs in a circle and then sit on them.
Hand the bag to one of the students.
The game begins when the student sitting to the right asks the student holding the bag, "what's in the bag?" The student with the bag answers "an apple" and then he passes the bag to the student to his right who asked the question.
The next student then asks the question "what's in the bag?" The student with the bag answers "an apple" and then he passes the bag to the student who asked the question.
The bag is thus passed around the circle.
(The children may get confused as to who is asking and answering the question when they start quickly trying to pass on the bag)
This is repeated until you say stop.
Then the person holding the bag takes out one piece of paper and reads it out. If it says "who had the apple is out", then the person who gave him/her the bag is out of the game.
If it says "who has the apple is out", then the person holding the bag and reading the piece of paper is out of the game
If it says "who will have the apple is out" then the next person who is to receive the bag is out of the game.
The bigger the circle the more bags you can add to speed things up and reduce the time it takes for the children to speak. Extra bags can have different things "inside" the bag ie TV, pineapple, my mother, or anything you may have been trying to teach. (Don't forget to add the 3 pieces of paper to each bag, (who had, who has, who will have))
Suggestion Two
Another suggestion is instead of "what's inside the bag" is to get the children to do an action such as ski, jump, clap, etc then you will need to write on the 3 pieces of paper; "the person who was ???ing is out", "the person who is ????ing is out", "the person who is going to ???? is out"
The child holding the bag then has to do the action.
The child to the right asks "what are you doing"
The child holding the bag says "I'm ????ing" and then passes the bag to the person on his right. Then repeat.
Suggestion Three
If you have a large class and don't like to see children being "out" then you can make several smaller circles and instead of the children being out they move from one circle to another circle.
Each circle can have different things in the bag or actions to do.
Suggestion Four
Other ideas for questions are:
"When is you birthday" Instead of 3 pieces of paper in the bag, put in 12 pieces of paper stating "if you birthday is in ????? you are out"
"what are you wearing?" The pieces of paper could say "if you are wearing anything black/blue/green etc, you are out"
"what's your name?" The pieces of paper could say "If your name begins with the letter ? you are out"
Hope that was clear.
Nigel
