Article- The best kids’ games ever 3- Catch- Loads of fun and language with a ball

The classic version: Students throw a beach ball around, either randomly or round the circle, shouting out the target vocabulary or grammar.
This game is good for: any vocab that comes in a sequence, e.g. numbers, days of the week, months, times, alphabet, and for questions and answers. Almost any spelling or maths games can also be made more lively and physical with the use of a beach ball. As that covers almost half of all the language you are going to cover with younger classes (even playgroup can do some of these if they roll the ball rather than throw it), you are going to need a few variations to keep it going…

Variation A: Throw and run AND touch
The problem with drilling with a beach ball can be that the students just end up producing the necessary words without paying any attention to their meaning, in the same way that most of our students know the alphabet song without being able to identify or use any of the letters. One way of coping with this is to have them respond to the sentences they produce by running and slapping something. At a basic level, as the ball is thrown the students say the sentence ‘What..colour..is..it?’ (one word per student) ‘It.. is……’ The next student then says the name of a colour and all the students rush to slap something that colour and sit back down on their chairs. The first student is rewarded with the beach ball to start the next round. To add more excitement, the ball is thrown away with the last word and students have to run and touch, fetch the ball and then sit down to win- this has produced some impressive examples of rugby-style play with the whole class trying to drag the ball to their chair!  Another alternative is for the student naming the colour/ classroom object etc. to try to throw the ball at that thing, and all the other students to try to block it and catch the ball themselves.

Variation B: On and off your chairs
Especially with KG classes, bringing out a beach ball can be a recipe for chaos (and even fights). Getting students to stand on their chairs (maybe with shoes off) adds a bit more order. This can also be used to add a competitive element. Any student who makes a mistake, throws the ball badly or fails to catch has to come down off their chairs to stand on the floor. The stages for further mistakes are: ‘Sit on the floor’, ‘Lie on the floor’ and ‘You’re Out’ (and the game restarts). To add incidental language, get the other students to give these commands to the student who is being penalised.

Variation C: One leg two legs one hand two hands
This is basically the same as variation B, but students have to kneel on one knee, kneel on two, put one hand behind their back, put two behind their back (so they can only head the ball) and then, if they head unsuccessfully, they are out. Restart the game when the first student is out.

Variation D: Don’t catch
For classes that never fail to catch the ball, or who take forever to say something once they have the ball, and so make the game boring, make them bounce the ball up and down while they are thinking (like a one-man volleyball team).

Variation E: Real Tennis
When throwing the ball back and forth is getting a bit dull, especially in a small room, the best thing to do is to start bouncing off the walls! This is good for activities when students might want the ball to bounce back at themselves for another go, e.g. maths puzzles (‘Seventy… plus… twelve… minus… thirteen… equals…’), and works well in 1 to 1 classes…

One to one variations:
As someone who is far too competitive to ever deliberately lose a game, even to a 2-year-old, I’ve had to think of some variations to let the kids win occasionally.

Variation F: Co-operation
Rather than competing against the student, you both see how far you can get without dropping the ball. To make it more challenging, try hitting the ball volleyball style (no catching), kicking or heading it, or throwing it with you both standing on chairs.

Variation G: Individual challenge
Alternatively, the teacher just acts as timekeeper, score keeper and/ or cheerleader as the student tries it on their own. This can also be used when you have a small class split into two teams.