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5 Things
5 things is a very versatile game for practising vocabulary or leading into a topic.
- Focus: Lexis, Lead in
- Level: Any
- Age: Kids/Teens/Adult
- Target Language: Any
- Time: 5 minutes-40 minutes
- Preparation: Minimal
Procedure:
1: Pick a category and note five things in that category e.g. five things which are round (wheel, coin, ball, moon, orange).
2: Tell students the category and that they have two minutes to think of the same five things.
3: After a few turns, get students to make their own lists in groups and challenge the class to guess their five things.
Example:
S1: I’m thinking of 5 things which are green.
S2: Apples? Leaves?
Variations:
1: With lower level groups it will help to give students the categories so that they simply need to think of the vocabulary.
2: Use as a lead-in by challenging students to name five things related to the topic, e.g. five most spoken languages in a lesson about other languages.
Example Categories:
Five fruits/vegetables/animals/countries.
Five most spoken languages.
Five things in the classroom.
Five famous people from …
Five occasions when people give presents.
Five things made of wood/metal/plastic/leather/glass.
Five ways to travel in your country.
Five jobs that don’t pay enough money.
Five famous detectives.
Five prepositions/linking words.
Five nouns ending with -ation, -ment, etc.
