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Grade 5 English Classroom Games

Eight games for a Grade 5 class, each tied to what this grade is actually learning: reading closely, putting sentences in order, giving reasons, and writing three or four connected sentences.

  • Grade 5
  • Classroom games
  • No equipment
  • Large classes
  • Free

What a Grade 5 class needs from a game

Grade 5 is the scholarship year, English is not in that paper, and the English period is the one most likely to be taken for revision. That is the real condition these games are written for, so every one of them is short, and every one produces something a scholarship paper also asks for: reading closely, putting things in order, and giving a reason.

None of that is a compromise. A pupil who can order four sentences and say why is doing the same thinking the mathematics paper wants, in English. It is worth saying so out loud to a colleague who asks.

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 paragraph jumble

  • Time 7 minutes
  • Learners work Pairs
  • You need Four or five sentences of a story written on the board out of order

Language Sequencing, and the words that signal order: first, then, after that, finally

  1. Board five sentences of a short story in the wrong order, numbered 1 to 5 as they stand.
  2. In pairs, pupils write the correct order as a line of numbers. Three minutes.
  3. Take the answer from one pair, then ask a different pair whether they agree and why. The why is the lesson: Sentence 4 must be first because it says he woke up.
  4. Read the story aloud in the right order with the whole class.

Variation Harder: one of the five sentences does not belong in the story at all, and they must find it.

Large class Everything is on the board, so nothing is copied or handed out. Pairs sitting together, no movement, and the numbers make marking instant from the front.

2 What happened next

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

Language Past simple narrative, and because and so

  1. Give the class one opening sentence: When Amali opened her bag, her lunch was not there.
  2. Each row builds the story, one sentence per pupil, spoken aloud, down the row.
  3. The rule is that each sentence must follow from the one before. A pupil whose sentence does not follow is asked why did that happen? and must connect it with because or so.
  4. At the end, ask the class which row's story was best and why. Insist on a reason.

Variation Harder: the story must end with a sentence you give them at the start, so the row has to steer towards it.

Large class One row at a time with the others judging. Give the listening rows a job - decide which sentence was the cleverest - and they will listen to all of it.

3 Fact or opinion

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

Language Distinguishing a fact from an opinion, and I think

  1. Explain the difference with two examples: Kandy is in the Central Province and Kandy is the most beautiful city.
  2. Read out ten sentences. Pupils stand for a fact and stay seated for an opinion.
  3. After each one, ask one pupil why. The reason matters more than the answer.
  4. Include two that genuinely could be argued, and let the class argue them.

Variation Harder: pupils write three sentences about their own village, two facts and one opinion, and the class identifies which is which.

Large class Standing to answer shows you forty-five answers at once, and the pupils who look around before deciding are the ones to ask why.

4 Twenty questions about a picture

  • Time 7 minutes
  • Learners work Whole class, one pupil at the front
  • You need None - any picture in the textbook

Language Question forms, and yes-or-no short answers

  1. A pupil chooses one thing in a picture everybody can see and does not say what it is.
  2. The class asks yes-or-no questions: Is it an animal? Is it on the left? Is it bigger than a chair?
  3. Count the questions on the board. Fewer than ten is good guessing; more than fifteen means the questions were poor, and it is worth saying which ones wasted a turn.
  4. Two or three rounds, with a different pupil each time.

Variation Harder: the class may not ask about position at all, only about what the thing is and does.

Large class Take questions strictly by row in order. The counting on the board is what makes the class think before asking, which is the actual skill.

5 The comparison ladder

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

Language Comparatives and superlatives together

  1. Board four things of clearly different size: an ant, a cat, an elephant, a bus.
  2. Each row writes as many true comparison sentences as it can in three minutes, one sheet passed along.
  3. Read them out. A point for each correct sentence, two for a sentence using the superlative correctly.
  4. Board the two best sentences and let the class improve them further.

Variation Harder: four things that are not obviously ordered - a book, a telephone, a bicycle, a shoe - so the comparison has to name what is being compared.

Large class One sheet per row passed along means every pupil writes one sentence, which is forty-five sentences in three minutes. No other arrangement gets close.

6 Spot the wrong sentence

  • Time 5 minutes
  • Learners work Whole class, then pairs
  • You need Four sentences on the board, one with a mistake

Language Whatever the class is getting wrong: subject-verb agreement, plurals, tense

  1. Board four sentences. One has a single error, taken from the class's own written work - never with a name attached.
  2. Pairs find it and write the correction. Two minutes.
  3. Take the answer, then ask whether anybody thought a different sentence was wrong. Wrong answers here are useful and should be discussed, not dismissed.
  4. Do three rounds. The errors should be the ones you keep marking, so they meet them before the next test.

Variation Harder: two of the four have errors, and nobody is told how many.

Large class Everything on the board, nothing distributed. Using the class's own errors anonymously is what makes this worth the five minutes: they are the mistakes actually being made in that room.

7 One sentence only

  • Time 7 minutes
  • Learners work Individually, then the whole class
  • You need A short paragraph the class has already read

Language Summarising, and choosing what matters

  1. Take a paragraph from the reader that the class knows. Everybody writes what it is about in exactly one sentence.
  2. Four or five pupils read theirs out. Do not judge them yet.
  3. Ask the class which one sentence would help somebody who had not read the paragraph. That is the test of a summary, and it is not the longest one.
  4. Board the best and let the class shorten it by three words without losing the meaning.

Variation Harder: a limit of eight words, which forces real decisions.

Large class Everybody writes, five read, and the shortening at the end is done by the whole class together - so the thirty-nine who did not read are still doing the work.

8 The instruction test

  • Time 6 minutes
  • Learners work Individually
  • You need None

Language Reading and following written instructions precisely

  1. Board six numbered instructions. Number one says: Read all six instructions before you do anything. Number six says: Do only number two.
  2. Give them three minutes and say nothing while they work.
  3. Most of the class will do all six. Let that happen without warning them, then read number one aloud again.
  4. Talk about it for two minutes: on an examination paper, the instruction at the top is the one that decides the marks.

Variation Use it once a term, no more. It works exactly once with any class, and the class will tell the next one.

Large class Better with forty-five than with ten, because the two or three pupils who read to the end first will sit quietly and the rest will notice them - which teaches the point faster than you can.

Questions teachers ask

My English period keeps being taken for scholarship revision.

It will be, and arguing about the timetable rarely works. What does work is making the English period visibly produce reasoning and reading, which is why every game here can be finished in under ten minutes and leaves something on the page. Ten minutes of English inside a revision period is worth more than a fight you lose.

Half my class will not sit the scholarship and knows it.

Those are frequently the pupils for whom the English period matters most, because it is the subject where they are not already behind. Score by row rather than individually so the pupils who have given up on marks can still contribute, and choose the readers and speakers from among them.

Should I correct their English or their reasoning?

The reasoning first, and out loud. If a pupil gives a sound reason in poor English, say the reason was good and then supply the English. A pupil corrected only on grammar stops offering reasons, and the reasons are the part that is harder to teach.

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Back to English Classroom Games