3 word games for vocabulary building and practice

10 things that …

This fun vocabulary activity works wonderfully with small to large groups, from beginners through to advanced students.

It’s a race and a competition, which encourages participation and increases motivation. It can increase participation for the remainder of the class when used as a warm-up.

Beginner classes may like to use a dictionary – it will help expand their vocabulary, especially if you do a follow-up activity and make sentences with the words they found.

Make the 10 things more difficult for higher level classes.

1. Divide the class into groups of 3-5 students.
2. Each group can either have one writer, or everyone can write (increases speed and confusion – good for advanced classes).
3. Students will write down 10 things that … as fast as they can.

10 Things that …

• are round
• are yellow
• can fly
• live in the sea
• must be kept cold
• have feathers
• are stressful
• are spectacular
• are dangerous
• are imaginary
• live in the Amazon jungle
• have an exoskeleton
• sleep during the day
• require fuel
• have an x in their name
• use the same word for their singular and plural forms

Related words

What verbs are similar or related to the following verbs?

• smile
• sleep
• eat
• speak
• walk

For example – smile: grin, smirk, laugh, giggle, …

I can only nibble on a tiny amount of this ultra rich chocolate coffee cake _(recipe here!)_

A silly story

Choose at random 3 nouns, 3 adjectives and 3 verbs. Or better – get someone else to pick the words randomly.

Write or tell a short story using all nine words, in the past tense.

The sillier the better!