Article- The best kids’ games ever 6- Variations on “tag”

 Variations on “tag”- Running and screaming with an educational purpose

Unlike most of the games I have given variations for in previous articles, this is not well known as an EFL game. At least not yet… I tried it for the first time about a year ago and it has since become as much of a standard in my young learner classes as it is in the British school playground.

The (soon to be) classic version: One designated student (‘it’) tries to touch one of the other students as they run away. When they touch someone they have a short question/ answer dialogue with him or her such as ‘What’s your name?’ ‘My name’s…’. The student who was touched is now ‘it’ and the game continues. This is a great way of revising almost any questions you introduced earlier in the class and/ or in previous classes.

Variation A: Hit me with it
Especially the first time you play tag in class, having an object that the person who is ‘it’ holds and touches the other students with makes the rules of the game and who is ‘it’ more obvious. This will need to be something soft, like a puppet with no hard eye parts, soft plastic fruit or a ball. This is then passed to the next person who is ‘it’. You can also change the object every time you change the questions they must ask, e.g. a red block for ‘What’s your name?’ changed to a green block for ‘How old are you?’. The question and answer exchanges can also be about the object they are holding, such as ‘What’s this?’ or ‘What colour is it?’.

Variation B: Don’t run!
To practice action vocabulary and vary the pace of the game have the students chase each other by jumping, hopping, flying etc. rather than just running. During the game shout ‘Stop!’ and get all the kids to freeze. The teacher, or the student who is ‘it’, designates an action and the game continues with everyone skipping etc. away and after each other. This works for any vocabulary you can represent with a mime at all (e.g. getting students acting out stabbing with a knife and fork with their arms as they run) but makes most sense with those actions that involve moving quickly e.g. animal and transport mimes.

Variation C: Safe Zone
To add language, cut down on the amount of random screaming excitement etc. you can introduce a safe position where students cannot be tagged, e.g. ‘touch something blue’, ‘under the piano’, ‘left foot on a chair’ etc. Again, ask everyone to freeze and the teacher or the student who is ‘it’ can designate what the next safe position will be. This is good for practicing classroom vocab, colours and prepositions.

Variation D: Hit me here
Especially in a class where large student numbers or limited space make it too easy to tag someone else, you can make it more challenging by telling the person who is ‘it’ that they have to tag the next person somewhere specific e.g. on the left sock, shoulder or on something blue. This time the students who are being chased can be the ones to nominate which part. This is good for ‘left’, ‘right’, clothes, body parts, colours etc.

Variation E: Stuck in the mud
I have yet to have a class become bored of playing the versions of tag above, but here is a more complicated version just in case. In this version students who are tagged must freeze on the spot. The aim of the person who is ‘it’ is then to tag everyone so that they are all frozen on the spot. What makes this more difficult is the fact that the frozen students can be freed by their classmates. In the playground version this is achieved by crawling between the frozen person’s legs, which is fun. More language can be introduced by changing the way of freeing people throughout the game, e.g. ‘touch the nose’, ‘say “What’s your name?”’ etc. Having the question and answer dialogues when people are being freed rather than being tagged also makes it a bit more possible for the student who is ‘it’ to win the game.

Variation F: Sit down tag
Not only is it possible to play tag without standing up, e.g. in a classroom where there isn’t room, the controlled situation means the language is likely to be much more properly practiced than in the running round screaming versions. Rather than students chasing each other, puppets ‘run after’ each other around the classroom. Two puppets are given to students on opposite sides of the classroom; one (preferably a scary one such as a snake or spider) nominated as the chaser and the other (e.g. a doll or princess) as the victim trying to escape. The students complete the dialogue being practised (e.g. What’s his name? His name’s Rodney) with a neighbouring student, then (and only then) pass the puppet onto that student. The student holding the chaser puppet will want to pass towards the victim, while a student holding the victim will want to pass away from the chaser. If a student holding the chaser can touch a student holding the victim with his puppet then the chaser puppet has won. There are no teams in this game but you could give points to the student who is holding the chaser and manages to win the game. The game can also be played with flashcards rather than puppets.
The most difficult part of this game is trying to explain it, so there are a couple of easier variations you can start with. The first is to play the game sitting in a circle. The second is to start with just the victim being passed by the students while the teacher walks slowly round the classroom with the chaser puppet trying to catch up. This reintroduces the screaming element of the original game!