Hi everyone. This is my first post on your forum, so I hope it is somewhat useful.

I saw this little game idea one day when I was reading on a teaching forum. At first I past it over thinking it would not be that useful, but then it crept back to me from the back of my mind. Now that I've tried it I realize how powerful it is with ANY age group.

I call it Monkeys and Bananas (I think that is the way it was called on the forum). You use a single die. I use a regular die. I assign 1, 4, 6 as bananas and 2, 3, 5 as monkeys. It is therefore basically an even chance of getting one or the other--slightly better chance of getting bananas. I give each team 20 bananas to start with. If a team rolls the die and gets bananas then their banana total increases by that many bananas. If they roll monkeys then monkeys eat that many of their bananas.

But that is not all. Each team has the option of rolling the die for themselves or they can give the result to another team (but they have to decide this before they roll). If they give the results to another team then it is the other team's score that goes up or down.

It adds a true random element to a quiz game.

With my middle school students I've been using riddles with 5 clues (each clue giving more information). The first team to solve the riddle gets control of the die and makes the all important decision and rolls.

With elementary school students I've had the students practice putting sentences into past and future tense and then giving the die afterwards.

I've even used this with pre-schools as a way of drilling numbers, colours, and alphabet.

It is basically a distraction from the serious task and allows it to be fun. It has been highly popular (even with high school students and adults). Give it a try. It is an easy thing to carry with you.

I'd love to hear how others use this idea.

what a great idea! I will have to try it.
Here is another game to use when teaching vocabulary.
It's called random numbers but can be used for any
vocabulary. The flashcards from this website should
work perfectly. It seems extremely simple and perhaps
even boring, but it works well because it requires that
the students really pay attention, yet give them time
to process the language in their minds. Here is the link;

http://verbwall.com/VWVW/Lessons/Lesson7.htm

Here is another no-prep game that my students love. Break the students into pair and give them a Yes card to share. You then make a statement and if it is true, students race to get the card. You can practice a grammar structure or simply hold up a flashcard and say a word. If the word matches the flashcard, students go for the YES card. After they have become used to the game you also introduce the NO card.