Activity

Four Corners BOMB game (and template)

ES, JHS, SHS English twist on old classroom game

TL;DR:
I made a fun "4 Corners" PowerPoint game that gets students moving. It’s perfect for filling time or reviewing vocab, and you can easily tweak it with your own questions! It is based on an old PPT game from Korshare years ago, but I've updated the graphics and questions to be more relatable~

How to Play:

1. You show a question like, “What’s your favorite color?” on the screen.
2. The four corners of the room have different answers (e.g., “Red, Orange, Purple, Green”), and the students walk to the corner they think won’t get bombed.
3. Give them a 10-second countdown, then hit spacebar to “bomb” one corner. The kids in that corner sit down (at their desk), and the rest keep going.
4. The last student standing wins!

You can change up the questions to fit whatever topic or grammar point you’re working on.


Materials:

  • The PowerPoint
  • A classroom with enough space for students to move to the different corners.
  • Optional: a timer or buzzer for the countdowns, but I usually just count down myself.

Notes:

  • While it's aimed at younger students, during a self intro lesson or as an end-of-class time filler this has worked in a pinch for SHS!
  • I also made little corner identifiers you can print and put in the corners of your classroom. This only really needed to be done with my youngest kids in ELEM.

General Lesson Plan:*

Intro: I usually use this game after my self-introduction to get the kids up and moving. You could also use it as a fun time-filler if you have extra minutes at the end of class.

Explain & Play: Tell them the rules, and off they go! The best part is the tension when the countdown starts—students are on the edge of their seats, hoping their corner doesn’t get bombed.

Multiple Rounds: I usually do about 3-4 rounds. You can easily swap out the questions depending on what you’re teaching that day.


Variations:
Here are some other question variations you could make:
"Which one do you prefer?" (e.g., Cats or dogs? Summer or winter? Pizza or sushi?)
"Which of these is ___?" (e.g., Which of these animals is a mammal? Which of these countries is in Europe?)
"Where would you like to go?" (e.g., The beach, the mountains, a theme park, or a museum?)
"Which one do you think is the odd one out?" (e.g., A pencil, a book, a chair, a pen?)
"Have you ever ___?" (e.g., eaten natto, played the paino, visited Tokyo, cried on a plane)

Files:
Small files
  • Four Corners PREVIEW (w template).png (699 KB)
  • OPTIONAL A4 prints for corners.pdf (60.2 KB)
  • Medium files (requires an account to download) -
  • 4 Corners TEMPLATE blank.pptx (21.4 MB)
  • Four Corners BOMB game!.pptx (28.9 MB)
  • 51
    Submitted by CarpenterBee September 17, 2024 Estimated time: 10-25
    1. noktik September 17, 2024

      I don't think this should be listed under High School. 😬

    2. cosmicality September 18, 2024

      I disagree with noktik! I love four corners and this seems like a fun variant. My SHS special needs kids would loooove to play it with a bomb added, which I'd never considered before! Also, if you change the questions it can certainly also be fun for an after intro lesson activity for regular SHS classes, too.

    3. kusobaba September 25, 2024

      Great upload, thank you!

    4. ReySensei September 30, 2024

      I tried this one last week in my 3rd grade classes.
      I am very thankful for the template.
      I made a version using let try 1 flashcards and we had a blast.
      Thank you very much for sharing the template.

    5. salma October 3, 2024

      This looks really fun! Would love to use it in my classes next week.
      Around how long do the 3-4 rounds take in lesson time?
      Thanks for sharing!

    6. CarpenterBee October 3, 2024

      @Salma I'd say it depends class to class. Maybe around 20 minutes for 4 rounds. I had a co-teacher who forced the kids sitting to say the question in the middle and each corner to say their answer, but the kids didn't vibe too well with that method. It did last a good 35 min tho when we played that way.

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