Red herring

One of our favourite games in the classroom is red herring - a very engaging and competitive reading activity! We play it in groups, girls against boys most of the time. It works on a word level (list of numbers, etc) sentence level (list of 6 weather sentences, etc.) and text level (a postcard, role plays....).

• The girls close their eyes and put their heads down on the tables (to resist the temptation to cheat...).
• I pick a volunteer boy who comes to the board, and points to a word or sentence. That will be the red herring. 
• The girls wake up and put their hands up to say the words or sentences. Every time they say one that is not the red herring, they get a point. 
• But as soon as they find the red herring, the game is over, I count the points and the boys go to sleep.

An advice: write the answers down ( at least the initials), because they might try to say the same word/sentence twice by mistake or to gain more points.

It is a very useful reading activity, the pupils are really engaged and they all look at the board, you can easily praise the pupil for not saying the "h" in the word , for remembering what sound "j" makes or just to remind them of the upside down exclamation/question marks. 

Because of the mystery and excitement, they are all motivated to speak and don't get shy because I make them read in front of their classmates.

This game was also shared in my hub meeting in October, Janet my colleague likes playing it with her pupils and calls the game pommes empoisonées.

Which is your "red herring"?:-)