Resources

• Clothing Flash Cards

To Play

Class size: whole class
Set up: gather all the kids into the middle of the room. Place several clothing cards around the room (preferable in high easy to see places) and briefly review. Play some fun music, stop the CD and shout out one of the clothing cards and encourage the kids to move to that part of the room. When everyone is gathered near to the card chant ,"3,2,1 _____" say the items name as a group and pretend to put it on in a crazy fun way. Do several times while the kids are still having fun.

Resources

• Clothing Flash Cards

To Play

Time: 10 minutes
Receptive Language: “Put on / Take off your shoes!”
Productive Language: “Put on / Take off my shoes” etc
Game Explanation: Have all the students remove their shoes and dump them in a pile at one end of the classroom. Two teams. One student from each team races, on your command, to find their shoes & put them on. The faster student scores a point for his or her team.

Resources

• Clothing Flash Cards

To Play

Time: 8-10 minutes
Receptive Language: “Find a (____)”
Productive Language: various

Game Explanation: Two teams, each with a book or magazine (located at the far end of the classroom from the teams, if you like). Call out an object. The students must race to find the object in the book or magazine. The fastest team to do so scores a point.

Note: This activity works particularly well for the animal and clothing units, as the kindergartens will probably have several animal books lying around and any fashion magazine will be jam packed with examples of the target language (allowing you to vary the commands, i.e. by asking the students to find a ‘brown hat’ or a ‘red jacket,’ etc).

Resources

• Clothing Flash Cards

To Play

Time: 8-10 minutes
Receptive Language: flashcard vocab
Productive Language: flashcard vocab
Game Explanation: Review the colour & clothing flashcards, making sure to point out examples of card combinations such as ‘blue socks’ or ‘yellow t-shirt.’ Have two students stand facing each other for 10 or 15 seconds before getting them to stand back-to-back. Ask one of the students to identify one article of the other student’s outfit (‘Black socks’). If he can do so, he scores a point & the other student gets a chance. Continue until the students run out of articles of clothing to identify.
Note: This activity works best with older kagai students. Not recommended for seika nen-sho classes, though nen-cho students may be able to handle it, provided you give them a thrilling & action-packed demonstration with the Japanese teacher.

Resources

• None

To Play

Time: 10 minutes
Receptive Language: “Put on the (article of clothing)”
Productive Language: clothing
Game Explanation: Two teams, each with a corresponding chair draped in matching (i.e., the same items for each team) articles of clothing on the other side of the room. One student from each team races to don whatever article of clothing you call out, name it, remove it, and return to his or her team, with the faster student scoring a point. Make sure the students name the clothing they’ve put on before removing it.

Resources

• Clothing Flash Cards

To Play

Time: 6-8 minutes
Receptive Language: instructions, ‘Put on your ____’, unit vocab
Productive Language: unit vocab
Game Explanation: String up a washing line across your classroom & peg either realia clothing items or the flashcards to the line. Split the students into teams & then, one by one, tell them to ‘Put on your [clothes].’ The students race each other to the washing line, take down the item of clothing called for, & put it on. The first one to do so gets a point for his team.
Note: For nen-cho students, specify the colour of the clothing item they’re to put on. If you don’t feel like hauling a huge sack of clothing to your kindergarten substitute cut-out paper representations that the students must place against their bodies instead of actually putting on.

Resources

• Clothing Flash Cards

To Play

Time: 5-7 minutes
Receptive Language: instructions, unit vocab
Productive Language: ‘I like your ___’, ‘Thank you’, unit vocab
Game Explanation: Make a circle with some chairs but use one less chair than there are students (i.e. 10 students, 9 chairs). Put a clothing card underneath one of the chairs. Play some music & have the students walk around the chairs circle. The students race to sit down when you stop the music. The student who doesn’t manage to sit down must go the chair with the card underneath it & show it to the class. The class then says ‘I like your ___’ to which the student holding the card should respond ‘Thank you.’ Change the flashcard & repeat.

Resources

• Clothing Flash Cards

To Play

Play this game after the kids have seen the clothing flashcards a few times so they know the items. Do a quick review of the cards before playing the game. Use the template of the Teddy Bear and the clothing items. Attach the Teddy Bear to a board or a wall. Ask the Ss where to put the clothing items and to start with which clothing item. For example: “What should go first? Shoes? Socks?” Follow what they tell you. Sometimes you end up with having the shoes on before the socks. Pretty funny. Sometimes put the clothing items on back to front or on the T. Or put it on the teddy’s ears when it should be on his toes etc. Once the teddy bear is clothed, take each item off, and get the Ss to tell you what it is. This then works in nicely for your next class as the game is all set to go.