My kids were stressed with exams, so I've been trying to do something fun at the end of every lesson.  My students are 3rd graders at a private school, so their English is pretty good. These would be hard for elementary public school students, but hogwan students who speak better would do well with them I think!

I did these games with them, and so far they've loved them all.  They take little prep and can be done pulled out whenever, as a reward or be used to strengthen curriculum.  I only have 12 kids a class, but you could do teams with bigger classes.


Here is one, they really liked: http://www.stephencarr.com/classroomgames.html
The link isn't working right now, I don't  know why.
But, the idea is that one student goes to the back of the room and closes their eyes so they can't see.  While they are back there, you pick 3 students, who quietly come up to the board (so that the person who is "it" doesn't know who is up there).

You say draw... (a cat, a snake, a rocket, a flower, etc, having them draw you is really fun and they get a kick out of it) and the three students have about 30 seconds to draw a picture. I drew three boxes so that the students pictures would all be at the same height, not giving any clues as to who-drew-what.
Then, they quietly sit down, and the person turns around and picks their FAVORITE (not the best) and then the person who drew it is "it."

Here are some more games, I don't remember where I got them...
PASSWORD

Anybody older than 20 probably remembers the TV game show Password.The game can be easily adapted for classroom use. Choose two students to be the "contestants." You can always use the "I'm thinking of a number ..." guessing game to determine the contestants. Those two students go to the front of the room and face their classmates. Reveal a secret word -- write it on the chalkboard or a chart or hold up a card -- to everyone but the two contestants. The rest of the students raise their hands to volunteer one-word clues that might help the contestants guess the word. Contestants take turns calling on clue volunteers until one of the contestants correctly guesses the secret password. The contestant who guesses the password remains at the front of the class; the student who gave the final clue replaces the other contestant.

Tip: Choose words appropriate for your students' abilities. Words for which they might know multiple synonyms or meanings are best! You might use a thesaurus to create a list of possible words before playing the game. Write those words in large letters on cards so students can use them as the game is played. Save the cards from year to year.
Sample password: ferocious
Possible clues: fierce, vicious, wild, fiendish, savage, cruel, brutal

More possible passwords: understand, taste, slam, easy, recess, ancient, nasty, laugh, drink, impatient, hot, pound, glimpse, friend, correct, motion, ruin

I used these words: Drink,train, mirror, friend, school, hamburger, watermelon

Pass the ... game (i used a planet that I had hanging in my room and fell down...)
In this game, nobody wants to hold the rubber chicken -- the game's only prop! To begin the game, all students sit in a circle. Select one person to be It. That person holds the rubber chicken. The teacher or a "caller" says to the person holding the chicken, "Name five presidents of the United States. Pass the chicken!" As soon as the caller says, "Pass the chicken," the person holding the chicken passes it to the right. Students quickly pass the chicken around the circle. If it returns to the original holder before he or she can name five presidents of the United States, the holder is still It. Otherwise, the person holding the chicken when It finishes listing five presidents is the new It. You should prepare the topic cards for this game in advance. Topics can relate to your curriculum or be general information topics. The student who is It must name five items in the called-out category in order to get rid of the dreaded chicken!

I used: things that fly, animals, balls, vegetables, shapes, fruits, countries, fast food restaurants, colors, school supplies, sports, clothing, Korean cities, transportation, things in the bedroom, things in the kitchen, games, things in the classroom, food, school subjects, drinks.

I started with 3 (i only have 12 kids) and worked up to 5. One class even got to naming 6!  It's really fun. Make sure you teach them how to pass the object so it doesn't get crazy.

I haven't tried this one yet:
CHAIN REACTION

You can easily adapt this game to many areas of the curriculum. The teacher writes a category on the chalkboard -- foods, for example. Each student writes the letters A to Z on a sheet of paper. The students have five minutes to create an alphabetical list of as many foods as they can think of. Then the game begins. The first student must tell the name of a food. The second person must give the name of a food that begins with the last letter of the food given by the first person. The third person must name a food that begins with the last letter of the second person's food and so on. One at a time, students are eliminated.

Other possible categories: cities; songs; things in nature (for older students, animal names or plant names); people's first names (for older students, famous people's last names or, more specifically, authors' names).

One that my public school kids love and ask for almost every week is "Spelling Baseball" (I actually got this game from Dave's Idea Area, but it's really good so I want to share it!)

I divide the kids into two teams and draw a baseball diamond on the board. If they want to hit a single, they have to spell an easy word, a double is a bit harder, a triple is harder still, and a home run is usually pretty difficult for them. If you spell a word wrong, you get one out. Kids aren't allowed to help each other, since they can't help each other in baseball when they're up to bat. I either write it as they say it or for classes that are well behaved, I let them come up and write it on the board. I carry the current scores for each class and a long word list to each class, that way if we finish 5 or 10 minutes early, we can get in that much baseball time.

The kids find it difficult but they love the challenge and the competition!

Thanks so much, these will definetely help me out this week :)