To everyone,
I want to thank you for your assistance. I've been teaching ESL for about a year now and I used your site throughout my time teaching.
I developed a game that I thought some might find useful.
Materials: Pin-pong ball and marker
Description: Make three lagre circles side by side, put letters A B C on top of one circle, add one medium and one small circle in each. Make point values so each circle looks like a simple dartboard. Have kids spell a word starting with a letter that they choose. If they spell and pronounce the word correctly, they get to throw the Pin-pong ball at the dartboard with the corresponding letter for points. You can vary the cicles, points, and letters.
This a great warmer for kids. I've been playing it with my Summer English School kids and they love it. They are about 8-10 years old. Thanks again for everything.
Best, Chris

You can play the same game on a white board with suction cup balls like these:
(image from and product available at Amazon.com)

You can also make laminated targets and the suction cup balls will stick to your laminated targets. You don't need a black board or a white board to play this with your groups. Using laminated targets also works well with larger classes if you want to have them play in a few small groups.

Thanks, that sounds like a great addition to the game. It also opens up more possibilities for them to learn new words or introduce vocab.

I was also building a flashcard games based on kids picking action cards or cards based on sports and having them act them out like charades. One child would come up and pick a card hidden face down and they would have to act it out. I would have the boys vs. girls
For example, the verb - "jump" the child has to jump and the opposite team has to guess what the word is.
Sports - the child picks "baseball" they have to act out baseball by pretending to swing a bat.
If the team guesses right they a point, if they don't, the oppsite team gets a try.
If you have any suggestions that would be great.
I read your Get 'em game but I'm not sure about the rock, paper, and scissor part. Where can I find the flashcards? I read it again.
Thanks.

ABC Darts game seems to be a very funny and lively game. I'll try it as an outdoor game.

As far as charades are concerned I do the same thing, however not only sport and actions, but for example animals, jobs or feelings: I call it a mime game.
I also introduce sentences that kids have to mime and guess. You can practise a lot of structures this way; you just settle the model sentence (the one that you are practising during the lessons) and kids do the rest (so you not only practise vocabulary but also a structure). Examples of structures that I have used:
I can ... (with verbs)
He's/ She's a/an... (with jobs or animals)
You're... / You feel... (with feelings)
I .... yesterday (with regular or irregular verbs)

Or you can practise questions:
Can you ...?
Are you a /an...?
Are you ... / Do you feel...?
Did you ... yesterday? and so on...

A very similar technique that you prabably know is drawing pictures and guessing an object or a sentence.
I do it often with prepositions. Examples of sentences to draw are:

The cat is on the table./ The dog is under the tree./ The sun is over the house./ The car is in front of the house. etc....

My students love these guessing games and I'm always sure that they use a lot of good structures while having fun
Thanks once again for ABC Darts game!
Happy teaching.

Thanks this helps a lot. I hope you and your class enjoyed ABC darts.
What Mark wrote sounded like a good add on to teach new words.

In addition to the great variations offered by others, you can also use blue tac to stick your laminated targets to any wall, blackboard, whiteboard, window or door. Blue Tac is a sticky gumlike adhesive that is much easier to use than tape and it cleans up much easier. It is reusable and does not damage paint or surfaces.

These are all new ideas for me. Thank you for sharing. I will share at my next group meeting.