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Grade 4 English Classroom Games

Eight games for a Grade 4 class, each tied to what this grade is actually learning: the past simple, comparing two things, describing a person or a room, and telling somebody what you did.

  • Grade 4
  • Classroom games
  • No equipment
  • Large classes
  • Free

What a Grade 4 class needs from a game

Two things arrive in Grade 4 and both change what a game can do. The past simple means a pupil can say what happened, so a game can have a story in it for the first time. Comparatives mean a pupil needs a second thing to hold up against the first, so most of these games work in twos.

The past simple is also where the irregular verbs start causing trouble, and a game is the kindest place for that trouble to happen. A pupil who says I goed in a game hears the correct form from their own row within two seconds, which is faster and less painful than hearing it from you.

Eight games, no equipment

None of these needs a photocopier, a projector or a set of cards. Every one says what to do when the class has forty-five pupils in it, because that is the class most teachers reading this have.

1 The yesterday chain

  • Time 8 minutes
  • Learners work Rows
  • You need None

Language Past simple: I got up, I ate, I went, I came

  1. Board six past-tense verbs the class will need, including two irregular ones.
  2. The first pupil in a row says one thing they did yesterday: Yesterday I ate rice.
  3. The next pupil repeats it and adds their own: He ate rice. Yesterday I played cricket. The repetition is the listening practice and it is the harder half.
  4. Go five or six pupils down the row, then start a fresh chain in the next row so no chain becomes impossible.

Variation Harder: the chain must be in time order through the day - got up, ate, came to school - so the pupils must place their sentence rather than just add it.

Large class Five short chains in five rows at once is not possible, so run one row at a time while the others listen for mistakes: give the listening rows the job of catching a wrong verb, and they will.

2 Taller than me

  • Time 6 minutes
  • Learners work Whole class, standing
  • You need None

Language Comparatives: taller, shorter, older, younger, bigger

  1. Stand two pupils of clearly different heights at the front. The class says both sentences: Nimal is taller than Sunil. Sunil is shorter than Nimal.
  2. Now everybody stands and finds a neighbour. Each pair says the two sentences about themselves.
  3. Then change the adjective: older and younger, which they must ask about rather than see. Board How old are you? first.
  4. Finish with the whole class ordering four pupils at the front from shortest to tallest, directing them in English.

Variation Harder: the superlative - the tallest in this row - once the comparative is secure.

Large class Neighbours, never partners across the room. Four pupils at the front is enough for the ordering; eight turns it into a scrum.

3 Guess my person

  • Time 7 minutes
  • Learners work Whole class
  • You need None

Language Describing people: hair, height, clothes, and he has / she is wearing

  1. Think of a pupil in the room and describe them without naming them: She has long hair. She is wearing a blue ribbon. She is sitting near the window.
  2. The class guesses. Insist the guess is a name only after three of your sentences, so they must listen to all three.
  3. Then a pupil takes over. Board the three sentence starters they will need before handing over.
  4. Rule: nothing unkind, and nothing about size. Say this once at the start and it will not be a problem.

Variation Harder: describe a teacher the whole school knows, or a person in a picture in the textbook.

Large class Ideal for forty-five, because the class is the guesser and every pupil is looking around the room for the person. Take the guesses by row to stop the shouting.

4 My day in six sentences

  • Time 8 minutes
  • Learners work Individually, then pairs
  • You need None

Language Daily routine in the past simple, with time words

  1. Board six time phrases: at six o'clock, after that, then, at school, in the evening, before I slept.
  2. Every pupil writes six sentences about yesterday, one for each time phrase. Six minutes, no more, and short sentences are correct.
  3. In pairs, they read their six to each other and find one thing they both did.
  4. Take four pupils and let each read one sentence only - their best one. Four sentences read aloud is enough to show the class what good looks like.

Variation Easier: three sentences instead of six. Harder: the last sentence must say how the day was and why.

Large class This is the writing game, and in a large class the pair reading is what makes it speaking too. Never take more than four readers or the last two lose the class.

5 The furniture map

  • Time 7 minutes
  • Learners work Pairs
  • You need None

Language Rooms and furniture with prepositions: the table is in the middle, the bed is against the wall

  1. Each pupil draws the plan of a room - their own, or an imaginary one - with four or five pieces of furniture. Three minutes.
  2. They do not show it to their partner. Instead they describe it while the partner draws.
  3. Compare the two drawings. The differences are all preposition problems, and the pair will find them without you.
  4. Swap roles with a new room.

Variation Harder: the describer may not use the furniture's name, only what it is for - the thing you sleep on.

Large class Pairs at their desks, nobody moving, forty-five pupils all speaking at once. Walk between the rows and note two preposition errors to fix on the board at the end.

6 The shopping list

  • Time 7 minutes
  • Learners work Rows as teams
  • You need None

Language Food and quantities: a kilo of, a bottle of, two hundred grams of

  1. Board the quantity phrases: a kilo of, half a kilo of, a bottle of, a packet of, a bunch of.
  2. Give each row a task: You have a thousand rupees and you are cooking rice and curry for six people. Make the list.
  3. Five minutes, one sheet passed along the row so every pupil writes one item.
  4. Each row reads its list. The class judges which list would actually make the meal, which requires them to listen to every item.

Variation Harder: a fixed budget that does not quite stretch, so the row must argue about what to leave out - in English.

Large class One sheet per row, passed along, is what stops the strongest pupil writing all ten items. Say that rule out loud or it will happen anyway.

7 Which one is different

  • Time 5 minutes
  • Learners work Whole class
  • You need None

Language Any vocabulary set, plus because for the reason

  1. Say four words, three of which share something: mango, banana, rice, papaya.
  2. A pupil says which is different and why, in a full sentence with because: Rice is different because it is not a fruit.
  3. The trick is that more than one answer is usually defensible. Accept any answer the pupil can justify, and say so before you start.
  4. After five rounds, let pupils set the puzzles. Theirs will be harder than yours.

Variation Harder: four words with two possible odd ones out, and the class must find both reasons.

Large class Take answers by row in turn. The because is the whole point of the game - without it this is a guessing game and teaches nothing.

8 The long sentence

  • Time 6 minutes
  • Learners work Rows as teams
  • You need None

Language Extending a sentence with adjectives, place and time

  1. Give each row a bare sentence: The boy ran.
  2. Each pupil in the row adds one word or one phrase and says the whole sentence from the beginning: The small boy ran. The small boy ran quickly. The small boy ran quickly to school.
  3. A row scores one point for each addition that still makes a correct sentence. A row that breaks the grammar stops there.
  4. Board the longest correct sentence from each row at the end and let the class choose the best one - which is not the same as the longest.

Variation Harder: no adjectives allowed, only phrases of time and place.

Large class The repetition from the beginning is what makes this work with forty-five: every pupil says the whole sentence, so the row hears it five or six times and remembers the pattern.

Questions teachers ask

They keep saying *goed* and *eated*.

They will, for two years. Board the six or seven irregular verbs the game needs before you start and leave them up. A pupil who can see went will use went, and seeing it forty times in a game is how it eventually becomes automatic. Taking the list down too early is the commonest mistake here.

Is a game useful for the term test?

Only if the language in the game is the language on the paper. That is why each game below names what it practises. If the term test has a past-tense paragraph on it, the games with a story in them are test preparation, whatever they look like from the corridor.

My class is forty-eight. Is that too many?

No. Every game on this page is written for a class of that size and none of them needs pupils to move from their seats. The two things that actually break down in a large class are movement and individual turns, so these avoid both.

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Back to English Classroom Games