Young kids often giggle when they see things that don’t seem quite right! Get your youngest English learners giggling (and learning) with these silly Odd One Out games and activities.
Dizzy Doodlers
You will need: Whiteboard markers or chalk and a board
1. Think of a category or theme that you have been working on with your students, such as “shapes” or “animals”. Don’t tell the kids the theme.
2. Invite four students up to the board. (your first set of doodlers)
3. Choose three related words from your category (e.g., monkey, hippo, bear) and one unrelated word (e.g., can of soup). Assign all of the students at the board one of the words you chose. If they don’t know the word in English, you can translate it.
4. Before the students start drawing, spin them around once or twice (to get them a bit off balance).
5. Give the kids a short amount of time to create their drawing.
6. When the drawings are finished, ask the class this question:
Who’s the Dizzy Doodler?
In other words, which student drew the picture that doesn’t belong in this collection? Have your students identify each drawing as well as the category or collection the drawings belong in. Which category or collection would the odd picture belong in?
Silly Billy
1. Choose one student to go out into the hall for a minute.
2. Assign the rest of the class an action word. (See list below for examples.) Write the action on the board and demonstrate it if necessary. Practice the action together.
3. Tell your students that one student is going to do a slightly different (wrong) action. (See list below for examples.)
4. Write the second action on the board, and review it with the students. Remind them that only one student is going to do this wrong action. This person will be called Silly Billy.
Tap your head, everybody. (Rub your belly, Silly Billy)
Run on the spot, everybody. (Walk on the spot, Silly Billy.)
Everybody, play guitar. (Silly Billy, play piano.)
Whistle, everybody. (Silly Billy, hum.)
Hop on one foot, everyone. (Silly Billy, jump on both feet!)
5. Have all of the students close their eyes. Tap one person’s shoulder. That student will be the Silly Billy who performs the wrong action.
6. Tell all of the students to being doing their action. Erase the board.
7. Invite the student in the hall to come back in. (Everybody should be moving, including Silly Billy. If you want to use a girl name too, you could use Crazy Mazie.)
8. Ask the student this question:
Who Is the Silly Billy?
After the Silly Billy is pointed out, discuss the two different actions that were being performed. Write the verbs on the board.
Odd Collage
Are your young ones learning how to use scissors as well as a new language?
You will need: Magazines, scissors, glue, and a piece of blank paper for each group.
1. Put your young students into small groups or pairs and assign each grouping a unique category, such as animals, fruit, people, or clothing (no doubles).
2. Have your students cut out as many magazine pictures as they can from their own category.
3. Give each group a big piece of paper to glue their pictures onto.
4. Before the glueing begins, each group has to give up one picture. Allow the kids to negotiate for a few minutes to decide which pictures to give up. (If you think your kids will go for it, ask them to choose their favorite picture! Tell them it’s a gift.)
5. Now tell the kids to give the picture (gift) they picked to another group or pair. (Every group or pair should receive a picture that doesn’t go with their other pictures.)
6. Now, have students create a collage with all of the images, including the odd one.
What’s Weird?
Put all of the collages on display and have groups go around looking for (and talking about) the odd image. Odd Collages are fun to have on the wall for parents to enjoy and giggle about. Think of a fun title for the art display, such as “What’s Weird?”.
Wrong Rainbows
You will need paper and paint (or other coloring utensils).
1. Review the colors in the rainbow. You may choose to use “red”, “orange”, “yellow”, “green”, “blue”, and “purple”. Or for older, more advanced learners you may use “indigo” and “violet”.
2. Draw or paint an example of a rainbow with one very strange color in place of one of the other bands. For example, use gold instead of green. Ask your students to figure out what’s wrong.
3. Invite your students to paint a “Wrong Rainbow”. They should only choose one wrong color.
What’s Wrong with My Rainbow?
Give each student a chance to present their Wrong Rainbow. Teach them how to use “instead of”.
“What’s wrong with my rainbow?” (holding it up at the front of the class)
“You used black instead of red.”
Ridiculous Rhymes
Have you taught your young learners any fun songs or nursery rhymes lately? Do the kids in your class have a favorite Good Morning or Cleanup song? Get your learners giggling by changing one word from a familiar song or nursery rhyme.
For example: Row, Row, Row, Your Boat
Ask your students to think of a word that rhymes with “boat”. If they understand that a “boat” is a noun because it’s a thing, ask them to think of a rhyming noun. If they don’t know one, give them a hint:
Q. What do you wear to school on a cold day? A. A coat.
Now, sing the song, but change the word “boat” to “coat”:
Row, row, row your coat
Gently down the stream
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream
Now see if you can change the verb “row”. Can they think of a rhyming word that is an action word? How about “throw”?
Throw, throw, throw your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream
Now change both words!
Throw, throw, throw your coat
Gently down the stream…
Try this silliness with any of your kids’ favorite songs or rhymes. Change “mouse” to “house” in Hickory Dickory Dock or change “frogs” to “dogs” in Five Green and Speckled Frogs. The song doesn’t have to make sense. Focus on the rhyming and giggling! You could also have your young learners draw a picture of the ridiculous rhyme.
Speaking of songs and rhymes, you could also teach your students the classic odd-one-out Sesame Street song (video): One of These Things (lyrics).
Related on Sprout English
Sprout English has materials for your youngest learners, including our NEW Maze Craze section that is in the Spotlight this week: Games Room – Paper Games.
The Games Room has over 50 games to play in class, including card games, board games, word games, tic tac toe, bingo, and puzzles!
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