Good alternative to questions warmup for Elementary School

[cloa]

I know there are many warm up exercises- such as air writing of words of one member of a group with guessing by his team mates (like air guitar). I have just been going with the one that I was trained with ask "How are you", "What is the date", "What is day","What is the weather" etc. It just takes too long with the Year 5 and 6s in the elementary school that I met every week with free choice of teaching. They just aren't very responsive. What is a good alternative for getting them thinking and talking? Its hard to get effective home room teachers input on this (or anything). The teachers don't know their children in this area- the younger students class's year teacher (I have a different one each week) keeps telling me that they need an easy food exercise and they find it far too easy every time with the basic Western foods.

[moonbeam]

I sometimes make everyone get in a circle and say something like "I like strawberries" The student next to me (clockwise) will repeat what I like and then say what they like, and so on. It uses minimal English but still makes them think. And it's fun to see them scramble for a spot near me

I have very small classes (3-8 students depending on the school) so if your classes are bigger than it might be more difficult to do. Otherwise I'd just make super easy questions based on your previous lesson.

[cloa]

I sometimes make everyone get in a circle and say something like "I like strawberries" The student next to me (clockwise) will repeat what I like and then say what they like, and so on. It uses minimal English but still makes them think. And it's fun to see them scramble for a spot near me

I have very small classes (3-8 students depending on the school) so if your classes are bigger than it might be more difficult to do. Otherwise I'd just make super easy questions based on your previous lesson.

Thanks for your reply but we have a standard elementary school class size at least 30 . And we didn't get far enough into the proper lesson (no reinforcement) such that the previous lesson's content would be super easy- it might happen sometimes but best to have an easy standby.

[Ebi]

Why not make them ask simple questions to the student(s) sitting next to them? Start easy with just a "Hello, how are you?" and then each time add a different question, preferably something that relates to the topic they just covered ("Do you like __?") Be sure to demonstrate it first with the homeroom teacher, but I find that kids can usually get it quick and once they know the routine you can start throwing more complicated things at them.

[Isola]

One of my HRTs has the students stand up, and they have to ask 5 people the question (usually "How are you?" or whatever we studied last time) before they can sit down. This works for classes that like to get up and walk around, but who don't get too wild and off-topic.

Games like Typhoon Pirates can work in getting them to speak, because they want to play the game.

[cloa]

One of my HRTs has the students stand up, and they have to ask 5 people the question (usually "How are you?" or whatever we studied last time) before they can sit down. This works for classes that like to get up and walk around, but who don't get too wild and off-topic.

Games like Typhoon Pirates can work in getting them to speak, because they want to play the game.

Thanks very much for your reply. I have told there are troublemakers in our classes- my co-teacher (he runs a tutoring school) not the home room teacher vetoed a lesson based game where the students walk around and introduce themselves using details of common names in other countries (using English) and if they matched the country then they sit down. So he might veto a walking around game.

The younger year head teacher thinks that her year's students are not smart and they would trouble with a basic foods game but they had no problems- too easy.

[cloa]

Why not make them ask simple questions to the student(s) sitting next to them? Start easy with just a "Hello, how are you?" and then each time add a different question, preferably something that relates to the topic they just covered ("Do you like __?") Be sure to demonstrate it first with the homeroom teacher, but I find that kids can usually get it quick and once they know the routine you can start throwing more complicated things at them.

I tried my game- they understood air write but couldn't write a word on a piece of paper and then couldn't write in the air. I tried talk to your neightbour it didn't work. We are asking the home room teacher of each class what is their favourite game type- one briefly said Bingo- see if Reverse Bingo will work.

[Isola]

I'm confused about what they are supposed to be air writing. Elementary students don't know how to read or write in English.

[Ini]

They should know the alphabet. Spelling words could be tricky unless they are ahead of the curve.

[mothy]

They should know the alphabet.

Should being an important word there. A shocking amount of my 1st year JHS students don't. Of course, Saitama, so...

[cloa]

Should being an important word there. A shocking amount of my 1st year JHS students don't. Of course, Saitama, so...

They have a number of foreign students and returnees and decent eikwa using students- my co-teacher has one student in Year 2.

[alee50]

NEW English warm up activity for elementary schools

Try reading short stories!! Ask simple questions, too.

Only saying this because HRTs are already being trained to do that in their classroom.