The Exercise Game

The Exercise Game: a TPR (Total Physical Response) segment that's much better than Simon Says

I start off with stretching, giving commands like: put your feet together, apart, together, apart, together and touch your toes, stretch and reach for the ceiling, put you hands on your hips and look up, look down, look right, look left...

OK we've done 2 minutes of stretching and now we're ready for some practice. Start calling out actions and doing them along with the students: clap, jump, turn around, sit down, stand up, run... Once they've got the hang of it and have finished the practice, we start the game. You can try to trick them by saying one thing and doing another. Those that aren't fooled win. It can be done as a knock-out game but I prefer to keep everyone in the game and just reward students with stamps or stickers for each successful round.

Creating long lists of actions for them to listen to and then do, gets them talking. Listen: stand up, sit down, clap 3 times, jump 2 times, turn around, fall down. GO! Move: the students will say the words as they do them. It's just natural and now they are saying the words as they do the actions! Then add two more to the list until they can just barely remember and then make that the final round and award prizes to those that successfully complete the routine.

More language: squat, get really small, now get bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger, smaller, smaller... You are really only limited by your imagination. You can also tell stories and have the students act out the scenario with you. I generally try to have some painfully funny ending and the kids love it when "I got hit in the face with a shovel. Bang!"