Blog
Proximity Marbles
That’s another year of Halloween parties over. We had a lot of fun shooting teeth out of sharks with our home made ping pong blasters (see our Halloween party lesson plans for details). We have made a special effort this year to have our party classes prepared well in advance, so be sure to check …
The Fishing Game
The Fishing Game is a great game to teach counting, and especially counting animals, to young learners. The materials are cheap to gather together, and it can be fun for kids well into their primary school years, but we find it works best with children between 3 and 6, because it’s simple to understand, and …
Big changes
Due to a minor health-related issue, and consequently the necessity for our chief editor to move back to England, progress with the site has slowed of late, but we hope to continue to add more content as soon as things settle. We still have lots of video footage to edit down for our instructional videos, …
Editing has begun
With the footage we have recorded from our classes over the past month, we have begun editing more short instructional videos for our games. Our first new video for “Flick Disk” came from a fun classes of young children, but the game is fun for ages 5 through 12 since it requires skill and strategy. …
More videos!
As always, thank you to our readers and content viewers. As many may have noticed, we haven’t been able to upload new content for a while, and it may be a couple of months yet before we do. We are recording videos of our classes to upload as instructional videos for the game. So far, …
New videos
Since all footage from previous classes has been editted down for our instructional videos, we have spent the last couple of weeks recording as many games from our classes as we are able, so that they, too, can be made into instructional videos. So far we have footage of “Bluff”, “Spoon”, “Battle Bingo”, “Card Push”, …
Repurposed games
Although children may get bored of playing the same games at parties each year, it would be a shame to throw everything out. One game, originally made several years back, has been repurposed numerous times for different activities. What was once a “Pop Cup Bingo” game, was sliced and diced into our “Xmas Guided Cup …
Final edits
All of the footage taken so far in online classes, event classes, and classes taught at kindergarten schools in Japan have now been edited. Instructions to all games played in these lessons have been described in the uploaded videos. From now we hope to begin recording more classes, and games to upload at a future …
Easter is over, long live Halloween!!
Well, Easter has been and gone in the blink of an eye. Thank you to all of the teachers who came to our site, looking for ideas for their own party classes. It seems that our Easter Junior High School party class was especially appreciated. It is certainly trickier to find games and crafts to …
Looking to the future
If any of our readers have spent time in Japan, they’ll know just how swiftly shops here move on from each holiday season. Just a day beyond Halloween, and the candies and monster themed goods are already gone and replaced with the next big festival. For us, it can take a little longer to get …
A message to students
Being a public school teacher can be tough, stressful, tiring, and with endless hours of unpaid overtime work. Working at an Eikaiwa school in Japan, where your only source of income depends on the satisfaction of you students, and a single bad day can lead students to complain or quit, the pressure can be intense. …
Reviewed, Renewed, and Replaced
Whenever able, we are constantly adding to the activities and contents of this site, but we are also very conscious of improving on the material we already have available. So, a lot of our effort recently has been working on previously released games, activities and video content, and making sure it’s something that we at …
Social media
Long, long ago when the internet was still in it’s infancy, when I first donned a suit and bow tie and began appearing online, we were mainly using Facebook to spread the word of our latest creations or findings. Back then this website was just a glint in our eye. Since then, we have branched …
Easter lesson plans for all ages
Easter party classes are a tricky one to prepare. Apart from the egg and spoon race, the potato sack race (both of which require rather more space than a classroom), and decorating eggs, there are rather few traditional games to teach and play. That’s why we’ve put our heads together and found games that involve …
The Contact Us form and other new additions
In our continued search for new games and activities, we have added two new posts to our long games page, with additions of “Help your neighbour”, a card game that mixes competitive, and cooperative elements, and a papercraft race game that is simple enough that it can be taught and played in online classes. We …
Update #7
New content added since the last blog entry. Instructional video for of the “Long game” category : ConcentrationA new infant lesson plan added to “Lesson plans for small groups” : It’s a (Farmyard animals), with flashcards and worksheet.Keep up-to-date with new content by checking in regularly at www.esl-classroom-games.com