Ideas for Warming-up Activities

A warm-up activity is a short, fun game which a teacher can use with students. The purpose of a warm up is to:

·        encourage the students

·        wake them up – first thing in the morning and after lunch people are often a little sleepy

·        prepare them to learn by stimulating their minds and/or their bodies.

Warm- ups should last about 5 minutes. Warm- ups are particularly useful:

·        to help new students or trainees to get to know each other

·        to mark the shift when students have finished learning about one topic before starting on a new topic.

Here are 11 unprepared warm-up activities that every teacher can use.

1. Make the most words.

Write a topical vocabulary item on the board. In twos or threes students make as many new words from it as they can. Possible seed words: apologise, dictionary,Sseptember. Score a point per word and a bonus point for the longest.

2. Make the longest words.

Write a target word vertically down the board, for example. winter. In twos or threes students attempt to come up with the longest word  that begins with each letter. Give teams a point per word and a bonus point for the longest. 

W aterfall 

 I ndustrious 

N ausea 

T errified 

E mpty 

R etail

3. What does your name mean?

Using whatever resources they have at hand, students find and write down an appropriate adjective that begins with each letter of their first name. For example:Flirtatious, Relaxed, Extrovert, Desirable

4. Mixed up sentence.

Write a sentence on the board but mix up the word order then challenge students to reconstruct the original sentence. For example:  morning hadn’t eaten wish that döner kebab I at this 5am.

5. Mixed up sentence (anagram variation).

Write a sentence on the board but this time scramble the letters of each word. For example: hwy ddint’ I dusty draher ta vieyunrsit?

6. What do you know about bananas?

In groups students think of and write down as many facts as they can about bananas (or cats, Belgium, David Beckham, etc.). One point is given for each true sentence.

7. How many sounds can you hear?

Students sit in silence for two minutes and write down every sound that they hear. Let them compare their lists with their neighbours before seeing who has the longest list?

8. Round the board.

Give students a theme, for example, jobs, things you take on holiday, food. Write the letters A to Z on the board. Students write an appropriate word beginning with each letter. See also A to Z race.

9. Things to do with a potato.

Produce a potato (if that’s not possible, the concept of a potato). Ask students to list as many unconventional uses for it as they can. For example: paperweight, weapon, pen holder, iPhone dock. The longest list wins the potato.

10. Odd one out.

Give the students a couple of examples to guess (there are no right or wrong answers), then get students to think up their own ideas. Some examples:

·             apple, peach, banana, tomato (a banana doesn’t have seeds)

·             strawberry, branch, anvil, boat, iceberg (anvils don’t float)

·             window, river, envelope, client, oregano (client doesn’t begin and end with the same letter)

11. Name ten.

Get students to think of ten items that fit a certain criteria. For example, name ten:

• jobs where you have to wear a uniform
• Ukrainian meals
• sports that are played with a ball
• foods that contain eggs
• animals that lay eggs
• three letter parts of the body (eye, arm, leg, hip, ear, toe jaw, rib, lip, gum).