I am in a bad need of simple word plays for my students. I know that there are zillions of such plays on words out there but I need tried and tested ones that are suitable for 10-13 year olds.  The one that I have in mind is a word play posted here on the forum some time ago

Do you have similar brain-teasing activvities up your sleeve?

 

 

for instance:meet-meat-beat-bean-been-seen-seed.......

Something that I sometimes do with my students is give them a long work (that might be related to the theme were doing) and ask them to create as many new words to using only the letters in the word I �ve given them within in a short time limit, say 3 minutes! I use a timer with a load beeper (try to find words with all the vowels!)

E.g.   DEAR CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS  

New words:    red, miss, his, her, yes, means, reads, rice, richer, days, deals,

Another word game is "national geography" with 5 different catergories. I put Ss in pairs.  

Then I give them a letter of the alphabet e.g. "R" and they must find words for all the catergories beginning with "R".  

E.g. ruler, read, rabbit, raddish, Russia

If there word is original, they get 10 points.  If another pair has the same word, they get 5 points.  If they can �t find all the words, just call the round to an end yourself.  Count up the points and go to the next round.

Create a word chain.

1: Each person has a sheet of paper.  You tell them to write down the first word that comes to their mind when they here the word ......(whatever theme u �re teaching: Eg. school)

2: Each pupil writes down their word and then passes it to the next person (create a chain going round your class so that Ss know where to pass the paper).

3: Now they have a new word in front of them.  They write down whatever word comes to mind when they see the new word, fold over the paper so that the original word is covered and only their word can be seen, then pass on the paper again.

4: This continues until their original sheet of paper comes back to them.

5: They unfold the paper, read all the words and have a good laugh at how the words are linked.

I went to the supermarket and bought....a packet of rice.

I went to the supermarket and bought....a packet of rice and a bottle of milk.

I went to the supermarket and bought....a packet of rice, a bottle of milk and 2 loaves of bread etc.

If your class is very big, divide Ss into smaller groups so that everyone has a chance to speak.

You can do the same activity with clothes & accessories.

I think the specific activity you have posted would be too difficult for the age-group you mention.

1) If it takes twenty minutes to hard-boil one goose egg, how long will it take to hard-boil four goose eggs? e

20 minutes, 4 eggs can be boiled at the same time.

2) Is there a 4th of July in England? Yes or No?
....Yes. It comes right after the 3rd.

3) Some months have 31 days. How many have 28?
.....Twelve (12). All of them have at least 28 days.

4) Can a man in California marry his widow �s sister?
....No. He must be dead if it is his widow.

5) Take the number 30, divide it by 1/2, and then add 10.
What do you get?
..... Seventy (70). Thirty (30) divided by 1/2 is 6.

6) A doctor gives you three pills and tells you to take one every half
an hour. How long will the pills last?
......One hour. If you take the first pill at 1:00, the second at
1:30, and the third at 2:00, the pills have run out and only one hour
has passed.

7) A farmer has 17 sheep. All but 9 of them die. How many sheep are
left?
..... Nine (9). Like I said, all BUT nine die.

8) How many animals of each species did Moses have on the ark?
...... None. I didn �t know that Moses had an ark.

9) A butcher in the market is 5 � 10 tall. What does he weigh?
..... Meat ... that is self-explanatory.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Greetings from Greece,