WS: "Anything OK" Escape-Method #1: Typhoon

"Today we have a lesson. Anything OK" or "Please some game" are the terrifying bane of my life. The good news is that I have a solution. Well, at least for second and third grade JHS.

It's simple enough to play without any Japanese and can be made to fit almost any grammar point/s or revision topic. The best part is that you can use it multiple times with the same class. In fact, some of my classes have even requested it.

It's "The Typhoon Game"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


For this activity you need at least one dice.

Create a stack of cards. Any number above about 30 is okay. 40+ is best. What is on each card is dependant on what grammar you're teaching.

For example, my revision cards for the start of second grade have three words/items on each card (usually a subject, verb and object), and I want them to practice the past tense of verbs. So, for the card which has "Akira" "duck" and "see" I want them to make a sentence like "Akira saw a duck". Make cards using all the verbs from the previous year/s.

Also make as many typhoon cards (just a card with a typhoon drawn on it) as you want and shuffle them into your pack of cards. I'd make about 10 for a deck of 30, but more can be very funny. Less cards will be less tense.



Lesson

1. Make groups (2-6 students). One student comes and asks for "One card please", then takes the it to their group. Together they must come up with the best sentence they can.
2. One student returns to me and tells me their sentence. If it is OK I let them roll one dice, if it is more complicated I let them roll two (or just double the score on one) or more. So a sentence like "Akira saw a duck" will get one, and "Akira saw a duck and ate a duck, it was delicious" will be awarded two+. If they make a mistake, send them back to their group to think about it.
3. Write the group's number (or name) on the blackboard. When the student rolls the dice, the numbers equal points. So rolling a six is six points. Those points are used to draw houses next to the team name. Get the students to do this using this template:

Hopefully it's clear that one house is made up of nine lines. Each line is a point, so nine points is one house. The aim is to make as many houses as possible for your team.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuttt, here's where the typhoon comes in.

If a student pulls a typhoon card, he/she must erase ALL his/her group's houses and start again. Daaaaaaaahhmm!

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More

• Play this for as long as you want. I'd say minimum 15-20mins, maximum all lesson.
• There are loads of ways to modify this. You can have just one word on the card for more creative classes etc, etc.
• One great way to add variety for repeat classes is to add a few "FLOOD ATTACK CARDS". Drawing one of these allows the group to wipe out all of any other group's houses. Nice.
• One of the great things about this game is that although it takes a few minutes to explain the first time around, after that you can play it again with very little introduction.
• Also see "Ultra Snail Salt Chopstick Attack" for an alternative version.