Large Group Activities - Sports Theme

[Japeye5]

What have I gotten myself into here?

I am required to teach a large group of up to 100 students in my local community gym. The students will include mostly elementary school kids and their parents and even some grandparents! So it will be very mixed. They hope to achieve fun sport-like activities in English.

I have a lot of ideas for English activities, but I am struggling to fit the sports theme into it, most sports events don't require a lot of communication! This even will run for 90 minutes without any break.

If you guys have any ideas I'd love to hear from you. Thanks a bunch!

[bentonjapan]

as long as it is only for fun..."english baseball" (basically, a relay race where one student says a word to the next; yes, the 'baseball' theme is kinda tenuous, but large groups of kids almost always enjoy it).

1. set up a 'baseball diamond' (bigger the better) using, e.g., cones/pylons in, or near, each corner of the gym as bases.
2. divide the group in to teams of 4 or more players.
3. have all teams place one person on each 'base' and homeplate.
4. you, as the pitcher, show a flashcard to the players on homeplate, who run to 'first base' and whisper the word to the first base player; they then wait there.
5. in relay style, the first base players run to second base, second base players run to third base, third base players run home.
6. the first player (from third base) to reach home says the word to you in english to score a 'run'.

-make sure players do not 'lead off' by telling them to always touch the cone/pylon until they hear the word from the preceding player.
-make sure players only whisper (i.e., no yelling from a distance), and emphasize that it is good strategy that the other teams do not hear.
-they can say the word in japanese from homeplate to third base if they want/need to (or forget the english), so long as the final player (third base) tells you the word in english.
-if they forget a word, they must run back to the previous base rather than yelling to ask.
-you can make as many teams as you feel is appropriate, since it does not matter how many people are racing against each other.
-unfortunately, this will probably not take 90mins, though.

[Baggie]

That sounds like a nightmare.

This won't take the whole lesson, but if I were doing it, I'd probably do some sort of sports quiz for some of the time. True or false questions. Use a line to divide the "classroom" into true or false, then you ask the questions in English, and the class moves to whichever side they think is correct. Those who can't understand can ask others what you're saying. All wrong answers are eliminated, and you whittle it down gradually. When you get to only a few, you can alter it by having the last question as a first-hand-in-the-air gets a chance to answer, or as a last resort, choose a winner by janken.

I'd probably start with a Find Your Partner activity. Give out 50 pairs (or however many students you have) of cards with sports on them - and have a simple question like What sport do you play? I play XXXXXX. They look for their partner - when they find their partner, they sit down. That would be a good warmer.

[bentonjapan]

That sounds like a nightmare.

to organize? i have always found it is easy to organize, though i quite possibly did a poor job of explaining it here (although, you would not explain to the kids as i did here either). it is nothing significantly different than a basic relay race (or 'telephone game', etc.) adapted to the fact that kids typically love running around and baseball.

[Baggie]

That sounds like a nightmare.

to organize? i have always found it is easy to organize, though i quite possibly did a poor job of explaining it here (although, you would not explain to the kids as i did here either). it is nothing significantly different than a basic relay race (or 'telephone game', etc.) adapted to the fact that kids typically love running around and baseball.

Ah, no, I meant the class he's having to teach. 90 minutes of tiny kids, parents and grandparents sounds like a nightmare.

[Japeye5]

Thanks for the tips, I'm going to do the marubatsu game and the find-a-match pair game as suggested. and many other things. The oldies will have to be 'young at heart' for 90 minutes. I want to do the baseball thing too, but I'll have to wait to wait n see the final number of participants as it will be tough to pull it off with so many people, can't have too much idleness.

[Ricerocket]

I had to do something similar at one of my schools just for 1st graders, since I normally only taught 3rd to 6th grades.
Basically, I had to come up with a sport-themed lesson for 99 screaming kids who cannot speak a lick of English. Nightmare indeed.

So just for shits and giggles, I taught the kids only 4 English words.

-Stop
-Go
-Catch
-Pass

Then I brought a frisbee from my apartment and had a 50 vs 50 (me included) ultimate frisbee match on the school grounds.
The kids and the teachers got so into it, they created a club for it that still continues to this day, even though I haven't been to that school in years. Sad to say the English part of it was quickly lost in their enthusiasm to score, but shit that was one of the best days of work I can ever recall.

[Baggie]

What have I gotten myself into here?

I am required to teach a large group of up to 100 students in my local community gym. The students will include mostly elementary school kids and their parents and even some grandparents! So it will be very mixed. They hope to achieve fun sport-like activities in English.

I have a lot of ideas for English activities, but I am struggling to fit the sports theme into it, most sports events don't require a lot of communication! This even will run for 90 minutes without any break.

If you guys have any ideas I'd love to hear from you. Thanks a bunch!

How did it go?