Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way. Oh what fun it is to pun on a lovely Christmas day!
Christmas is on the way – bloggers have activated snow falling plugins, written yearly reviews and kindly shared an array of new and tried and tested Christmas activities with the world.
This year I’ve planned something old and something new.
Laughter.
Christmas Puns
Materials needed: print out and cut out the domino worksheet Christmas dominoes.
These Christmas puns are for intermediate language level and above.
How to play: The game may be played by 2-3 players. The aim is to build a string of domino cards by matching the beginning of the joke to its punch line. The players place the dominoes face down and shuffle. Each player draws 3 dominoes. Player 1 reads the beginning of the joke and puts their domino face up on the playing field. The next player takes their turn and adds the matching domino if they have one. If they are unable to play from their hand, they may exchange one of their tiles with a tile from the boneyard. The game finishes when all the jokes have been matched.
*If you would like to create your own word dominoes, check out this post by Tekhnologic.
And whispers.
Chinese Whispers on paper
Materials needed: an A4 sheet of paper per player
Special skills: Drawing skills; the worse, the better
Have everyone write their initials at the bottom of the page and think of a New Year wish they’d wish to themselves or their fellow students.
Language focus: Ways of expressing good wishes (in formal (may, let) and informal contexts), e.g. see different lists of New Year wishes here .
Everyone starts by writing a wish to someone in the room at the top of their paper. Once the players have a sentence at the top of their paper, ask them to pass their paper to the player to their left (or right). Then get the players to draw the wish given to them with a small picture under the sentence. After everyone has finished drawing their wishes, get the players to fold the top part of the paper over so it covers the first sentence. Then again, have the players pass the papers to their left (or right). When the players receive a paper, ask them to write the wish that is illustrated by the drawing.
Then get the players to fold over their paper so just the last sentence is visible and pass the paper to the player to the left (or right). Continue the game until the players run out of space or until the players get their papers back.
Ask the players to unfold the papers and read the wishes.
Happy holidays!
* * *
Looking for more ideas?
Check Christmas Quiz 2017 from Tekhnologic
DIY Festive Homework (Guest Post) from Sandy Millin
Fun Christmas resources from Larry Ferlazzo
3 Ways to Practise Grammar at Christmas from ACEnglish Teacher
Dirty Santa and Chocolate Confessions
Image: Tord Sollie, Creative Commons, Flickr.com
Hi Svetlana, happy holidays to you too! (yes, many of us activated the snow function, or rather, it activated itself! 🙂
Love the idea of doing ‘something old and something new’: had fun reading the dominoes, and the activity about drawing wishes sounds amazing. Would love to see possible examples from kids’ ideas (can imagine they are way more creative than adults!)
Thank you for the pre-holiday inspiration!
Zhenya
Hi Zhenya, thanks for stopping by! Chinese whispers on paper is something ‘old’ – I tried it with my kids and teachers last year; amazing pics indeed! Happy holidays to you and fellow teachers in Ukraine!:)