I had one last year that was a total disaster because the students were 1st graders and 3rd graders mixed boys and girls. Most were fairly high level, but the 3rd graders were really interested in discussion based lessons and there was no way the 1st graders were ready for that. Oh and there were 23 of them. AND the girls and boys refused to work together when I tried to get some mixed lessons happening. It was total mayhem trying to keep all of them interested and engaged. The things that worked best for me were whole class games. We did Mafia (very entertaining!), M&M race (they have to move M&Ms one by one with chopsticks from a plate into a cup - not much English involved, but they LOVED it and didn't mind mixed teams), and I also did a 5 senses lesson where we did things like feeling what's in the sock and trying to guess, optical illusions, and tasting food colored Pocari Sweat. If I were in your situation, I would focus on getting them up and out of their chairs and being active.That reminds me of another game that worked REALLY well for me: Do you love your neighbor? Have them sitting in chairs in a circle with one less chair per players. Then one person stands in the middle and approaches someone sitting. They ask them "Do you love your neighbor?" And if that person says, "Yes" then the people on either side of them have to try and switch places with the person standing trying to sit in one of the empty seats. If they say, "No" then the person standing asks, "Who do you love?" The person sitting must say something like "People wearing glasses" or "People with white socks." You can also go Meta and have them say things like "People on the soccer team" but I like to go with things we can actually see because it prevents cheating. OK, 1 more suggestion - What happens next? games. Play a clip or gif where something crazy will happen. Then pause it and have the students bet a certain amount on what they think will happen. My students loved this because often, it was really silly stuff that was going to happen and the choices were crazy and slightly unbelievable. They really loved the betting and had them start out with $50. They could only bet half of what they had in the bank at a time. One student got every single one right and got up to like $3000 or something. Anyway, good luck!
