Here are some well-known familiarisation games that can be adapted to students congregating for classes online
Team TLT
Schools have reopened to online classes. Though the debate about the duration of the classes, their age-appropriateness, frequency, children’s health, Internet access, safety and rules and regulations continues, that they are here to stay as alternative measures in a time of crisis has been established. Here is a compilation of strategies to get children to warm up to classes on a computer. These methods work offline as well.
Build a Story
This fun game encourages the children to be creative and involved. Depending on the time available, four or more children can participate in this game. The teacher can start off by giving an introductory line of an event or an action sentence, and the student will have to add to the story with one single, complete sentence. Each student should provide a different sentence. The teacher can stop the story when they know it is enough.
Example: A teacher may start off with ‘Raj was going to the market to buy some fruit’. After this a child can be asked to add to this story, with, say, ‘Raj always loved walking by the small bridge while going to the market’, and so on. This engages the children and they should be encouraged to provide lines that are more interesting than their peers’.
Scavenger Hunt/Treasure Hunt This can be played with any size and age group. The game’s interests depend largely on the moderator. In the case of school, the moderator will be the teacher. There are levels or different ways in playing this game. Usually it starts off with the teacher asking the children to bring and show an object. These items will be those one can find around the house or the surroundings of the children participating. For instance, a teacher can ask the child to find a pen that
writes in red ink, or a yellow bag, or a key/key chain. The important thing to keep in mind is not to ask for any item that can make children conscious of their own or the others’ social or economic status.
The children will have to show the item mentioned by the teacher in their videos so it might be necessary to ask the children to switch their videos on. They can still be in mute, though.
A few examples: If the students are very young children, you can ask them to
• Show something that was drawn or made by them.
• Show a book that they read.
• Show something that has buttons on it.
• Show a candle.
• Show something that has numbers on it.
• Show something that is blue in colour.
• Show a picture that is in their house.
• Show a fruit / vegetable in their home
What’s in my Box/ Find Out What I Wrote
This game is more like a guessing game. The person chosen/game master has to place an item in a non-transparent box or container so that it is not visible to the other player. They have to give some specific clues about the item/object placed inside the box and ask the players to guess what it is. If they have guessed it, they will need to type their answers in the chat box only. They can give up to four clues. Or they can do away with the box and simply decide on an item, write its name on a piece of paper and ask the students to guess what has been written based on the clues given. The game master can choose any category or a topic from the lessons as a challenge to the children. Some examples are books, household objects, items of daily use, fruits and vegetables, flowers and so on.
Two Truths and One Lie
This can be a good icebreaker for the children or as a warm-up later on. The game master has to select one child at a time. The child should think of three statements about themselves and then share them with the class by saying it or typing in the chat box. In these three sentences, two should be true and one a lie. For example, the child may say something like, “I have five shoes, I had bread for breakfast, and I don’t like to dance.” The other students must then guess which statement is a lie and type that into the chat box. At the end, the child will reveal whether the others guessed correctly or incorrectly and reveal the lie. The teacher can give this as an on-the-spot activity and by doing so attract the children’s attention towards the online class.
Find Someone Who…
This game is more interesting and less work for the game master if they know their group of participants. In this the game master should stick to facts pertaining to the group members. Create a list of traits, such as ‘someone who has a birthday in July’, ‘someone who owns a cat’, ‘someone who has won a prize in a quiz competition’, and so on. The children have to find out whom the teacher is referring to and type their name in the chat box or write the name of the child in a paper and show it in the video.
