Word Race

I use this game to energize my lower motivation 5th and 6th grade classes. I typically play this during the "Word Link" portion of the lesson. Choose a section in the picture dictionary (e.g. p12 Animals). Choose a student to start from and a direction in which to go (vertically, horizontally). Set a time limit before which students should say all of the words in that section (I typically go easy on them the first time and set the time limit to 1 or two minutes). In this example, the first student should say "Bear," the next student says "polar bear," and so on a so forth until all animals have been said (if there are fewer students than vocabulary cards, some students may have to say two words.) If they complete saying the list of words in the given time limit, then decrease the given time and challenge them again. You can do it as a class, or you can divide the class into groups and have the students compete against each other. Change the starting point and the direction to challenge the students' understanding of the words and keep their interest.

There is a plethora of variations you can do for this activity. For example, you can have students practice vocabary lists with fewer words like shapes or events by saying all of the words twice or three times within a given time limit. Other variations:

-Say words in the list backwards
-Have the students stand up, split into groups, have the members of their group take turns saying the words and sit down when they finish. This can add some competition between the groups for fun.
- You can have all students stand up, say all of the words in a list individually, and then sit down. If you do this, there will be one or two honest students who can't say all of the words, but don't give into peer pressure and don't sit down. I still haven't quite figured out how to combat this. You shouldn't punish them for being honest, but they will feel embarrassed if they can't say all of the words. I typically just have a few stickers and I help these students and give them a sticker when they finally finish saying all of the words. So caution using this variation.