Prep: printing and cutting out the cards.
Slamwich is my favorite card game and I'm in charge of a very small special needs class where I make the curriculum, so, Slamwich! It's very lighthearted, but still drills in the vocab, so I've been having fun with it.
Some cards have a taste word written on them, and some have a food. Divide the cards up equally between players in face-down piles. Go around one-by-one taking the card from the top of your pile and adding it face-up to a pile in the middle, but don't flip them over until you drop them in the pile. To add some speaking practice, I also have each player say the flavor of their card after they've flipped it. If the card that gets added to the pile has the same flavor as the card directly underneath it (i.e. the word "sweet" and a picture of cake, two cards that say "sweet", two pictures of desserts), you slam your hand over the pile. Whoever slams fastest adds the main pile to the bottom of their own pile. The goal is to gather all the cards!
You can also slam-and-grab if a "slamwich" occurs: a card of one flavor, a card of a second, and then another card of the first. It's a little harder to catch slamwiches, so I like to start with just the "doubles" rule and introduce the "slamwich" rule later if it seems they've gotten the hang of it.
Other notes:
-I like to start by introducing only one picture per word so they have to think about the other ones as they come up in the game, but when managing a larger class, it may be better to introduce them all up front.
-The time that this game takes depends a lot on how many cards you print and how many players there are - it could go for a whole class (I know I've played hour-long rounds of the traditional game), or you could set a time limit and whoever has more cards by the end wins.
-If you're splitting up a larger group, I'd recommend pairs, but you can play with as few players as 2 and up to about 6!
-If you're playing with groups, it's also good to emphasize that people who have run out of cards are still able to "slam" to get back in the game.
-I included katakana for my students, but to use this game with New Horizons, you may want to remove it. I also put in "gross" for more silly real-life English exposure, but keeping it or sticking to the NH vocab list if also up to you!
this is a fun game, thanks!
Just used this activity or a special needs class I was subbing. It went over very well in the small group of 3 kids.
Thank you for this!