Article- The best kids’ games ever 2- Variations on “Slap”, a game for any kind of flashcard

Variations on a Theme 2. Slap- A simple and very fun way to practice any language on flashcards
The ‘classic’ version: Flashcards are scattered around the table or around the room. The students race to be first to slap their palms down on the flashcard the teacher says (or draws, or writes on the board). Alternatively, students grab the card. The first student to slap or grab the card is given a point, e.g. the flashcard they have just slapped. Any disagreements can be decided by ‘paper scissors stone’. 
Useful for: any vocabulary you have or can put on flashcards, either in written or picture form, e.g. food, animals, colours, actions. You can also practice phonics by saying, writing, or spelling out the name of the object very slowly.

As with many physical games, the greatest problem is with students who slap every card in the hope that they find the right one without really listening to what the teacher says. Getting students to put their hands on their heads, noses, etc. between each go helps for this, as does taking points away from students if they slap the wrong card (particularly useful when there are only one or two cards left). Alternatively, the first two variations below involve students giving the teacher instructions on which card to slap and tasks for the students that are more challenging than slapping- both usually leading to a bit more thinking time before students act. The other variations below are just ways of making Slap more fun for a class that is getting bored with it.

Variation A- Robot Arm Slap
The teacher swings their arm back and forth over the stack of cards and the student says ‘Stop’ when the teacher’s arm is over the right card. The teacher then drops their arm onto the card their finger is over at the time. Other incidental language includes ‘move more quickly/ move more slowly’, ‘slap now’, ‘one more try please’ and ‘this card please’. 

Variation B- Tricky slap
This involves getting the students to slap or grab the card with some kind of object, to make the game more tricky, and therefore slower and more amusing. Options include pushing toy cars or coins from the side of the table to land on the right card, grabbing the card with chopsticks or mechanical grabbing hands (available from 100 yen shops), and ‘slapping’ the cards with objects such as sticky balls (dropped from a regulation height or thrown from the front of the table), plastic hands on sticks (100 yen store again) or just other body parts (nose or elbow). These variations tend to even things up between the students who are academic and know the language and the students who are better at physical stuff.

Variation C- Crocodile swamp slap/ grab
Students run around the room slapping or grabbing the right cards, but without touching the floor. Things they can stand on include pieces of paper, foam mats and chairs. Make sure that the chairs won’t fall over and that none of the objects will slide on the floor! Always a real scream (often literally when the ‘crocodile’ grabs students’ ankles).

Variation D- Moving flashcard slap
These variations add a bit more movement to what can be a static game. In the first version the teacher drags 2 or more flashcards along the table. The student(s) must slap the right card before it comes off the end of the table. This is good with prompts where students slowly gain more and more clues to which card you are naming as you speak, e.g. by saying the word letter by letter or phonic by phonic, or by saying a whole sentence with the flashcard word in it (‘There are some cars’). This is great for 1 to 1 kids’ classes. In the second variation you hold up 2 or 3 flashcards, then throw them around the room as you shout out the name of the one you want students to slap or grab. Both of these can also be used for any language you can practice with Stations.

Hidden cards slap
In this variation, the cards are already hidden around the room before the students enter. Students must then search the room for the named card. If they can’t find it without help, the teacher can give clues such as ‘It’s under the table’, so it makes for good further practice of prepositions as well.