Charades

Develop a list of objects, people, or places that can be acted out. Write each item on an individual card. Make sure they are words that the child can read and is already familiar with or consider drawing the object instead of writing it (e.g., brushing teeth, waking up, reading a book, dancing, bananas, birds, snake, dog etc.) Put them in a box or bag.

One child picks a card and does not show it to anyone else. This child tries to get the others to guess what the word on the card is by acting out the word on the card using their body movements. The child must try to do this without saying a word and within a set time limit.

Before acting out the word, the child can let the others know the category of the word or phrase and how many words it contains. In both cases, they must do this without speaking.

Category: Pretend to sing if it's a song. Make the action of a movie camera if it's a film. Make the action for a book if it's the name of a book, etc.

Number of words: Hold up the number of fingers (e.g., if the phrase is “playing football” hold up two fingers). Whoever guesses the word or phrase correctly is next to pick a card and repeat the game.

Work cooperatively until everyone takes a turn to pick a card. If playing with several children, divide them into two teams of equal size. A player from team one draws a card and his/her teammates try to guess the answer before the timer goes off. Then a player from team two draws a card and his/her teammates try to guess the answer before the timer goes off.

The game continues until there are no more cards or until every player has had an equal number of turns. Count how many cards were correctly solved within the time limit. That is the score.