ESL Activities: Kindergarten Fun for English Language Learners

Simon Says

When you’re teaching kindergarteners about body parts, why make your lesson dry and boring? Instead, turn the lesson into a game of Simon Says. If you’d like, change the main phrase of the game to “Mrs. Jones says…” You can also use this game to teach students about various objects in the classroom. For instance, you might say, “Mrs. Jones says…touch the board.” Your students will love running together to the chalkboard to touch it.

Charades

If you’ve taught your students a list of important English words of any theme, a game of charades may be the perfect way to help them practice what they’ve learned. For example, if the list included animal names, your students will enjoy barking like dogs or hooting like owls while the rest of the class guesses the English word for the animal they are portraying. The same would hold true with action words or other lists that you might teach.

Circle Conversation

Many ESL classes for kindergarten make sure to teach students how to introduce themselves to other people, but this skill means very little if it is not practiced. To make practicing this skill more fun, have all of your students stand in a circle. Then have one student turn to the child to her right and say, “Hi, my name is Alicia. What’s yours?” The second child should respond. “My name is Jin. Nice to meet you.” Then the second child can turn to the child on his right and ask the same question. This continues around the circle so that all of the students get the chance to practice the skill of introducing themselves to others and responding to an introduction.

I Spy

Learning the colors with your students? Try playing a game of “I Spy” to help them practice what they’ve learned. Start off the game by saying “I spy with my little eye something that is [a color].” Encourage students to raise their hands to guess what you’ve “spied.” As students become more familiar with the game, allow students to take a turn “spying” something.