Materials Needed:

Detailed Explanation:

1. Do an example of the game on the board with JTE.
2. Students make groups of four and are given a worksheet. Have them decide on an order of the next student to come and say the sentence and get a new card.
3. Each group gets a card, which has a close-up difficult to recognize photo on it, or you can simply affix the pictures on the chalkboard.
4. The pictures are numbered 1-12 on the back of the card. Each group gets a card, has to identify what the object is and write another line about it.  For example, "This is a picture of chalk. It is used by my teacher every day in class." As they finish they come to the ALT and exchange for a new card by saying the sentences.
5. Groups get points according to when they finish (5,4,3,2,1) and how good the sentences are (3,2,1). Make sure you keep track of who finishes first etc
6. The pictures on the worksheet are as follows (starting from the upper-left):
   water bottle cap, CD, koala, shoe bottom, DS Lite, scissors, coffee creamer container, chalk, newspaper, coffee mug, telephone, keyboard.

Tips/Cautions:

• Some students will fall behind. Ask the JTL to help keep track of them. Mix up the ability levels of the groups as well to combat this.
• The higher the level, the quicker they will get through the cards. Add or subtract as necessary.

Comments:

• (July 13, 2011) englipatrick (mod) said: Awesome idea, Ms Angie! No homework if they finish, nice!
  However, I am confused why people are confused about the pictures on the worksheet. THE ANSWERS ARE IN #6. The 'red things' pieces of chalk standing straight up. DOH
• (July 13, 2011) Ms Angie said: This is a great idea, but some of the pictures are far too difficult. Even if students know what a picture is, they don't know how to write things like "This is the bottom of a shoe." And some of the pictures are impossible to figure out... I STILL don't know what that all those red things are! So I changed many of the pictures to things they see everyday, like a toothbrush, and gave them dictionaries to use in case they didn't know verbs like "brush" (your teeth).
  Like Natasha, I also allowed incorrect answers as long as the sentence was correct and the guess was plausible. I think it's much better for them because they'll have to write a lot more sentences if you allow wrong guesses. But if students recycled sentences, (i.e. It is used by many people) I refused to give them the next picture until they changed the sentence. I asked my JTE ahead of time about giving the team who finished writing all of the sentences first no homework for the day. I've never seen my students so motivated and writing so beautifully!
• (July 12, 2011) Natasha said: oops, ignore what I said about the stickers, that was refering to a different game.
• (July 12, 2011) Natasha said: This game went really well. The students were interested to find out what the pictures were. I would recomend not using the 'coffee creamer' image as it is way too difficult to guess and hard to explain. I allowed incorrect answers as long as the guess was valid and they wrote a good sentence. I gave more points to students who wrote original sentences vs always putting 'is used by many people' over and over again.
  I also recommend putting stickers (seals) for the teachers mark. My unmotivated students seemed motivated to finish the activity because I put a star sticker at each level. One group in particular wanted to finish if I promissed to put a larger sticker after they complete all 5 levels.
• (Apr 20, 2011) Anonymous said: I used this game with my awesomely genki 3rd graders and it was a lot of fun. But now I'm planning on trying it at my other JHS, where the 3rd graders are not motivated. One of the problems is that groups will assign the student who is best at English to write all the sentences. I curtailed this by refusing to give them the next picture unless a different student wrote each sentence. The best way may be to give every student in the group the sentence worksheet to fill out.