Running in Circles, and a new friend

First, a new friend

I'm pleased to say that I will be sharing my blog with my friend and excellent Latin teacher up in Erie, PA, Eric Mentges. Eric teaches from the Orberg Lingua Latina book. He is also deskless, and, unlike me, has an AP class. I'm excited to be sharing this space, and also to be widening the perspectives we can share. Keep an eye out - I'm hoping our next post will be from Eric. We'll be tagging our posts with our names so you can look for specific people, if you wish.



Running in Circles

I'm not sure how I haven't shared this activity before (or maybe I have and just can't find the post!).

This is a great game for context comprehension, and we deeply enjoy playing this on Fridays.

You can easily play this game outside, but you'll need some kind of seat marker - a board, a paper, a really big rock, whatever. If you're playing indoors, use your white board or projector for this. If not, you may wish to pre-write all your sentences on large sheets of paper.

We set up all our seats in a circle, and the student without a chair stands in the middle. You can take volunteers, or you can voluntell someone. Explain to the kids that the person in the middle will read a sentence from the board, that after each sentence you're going to check for comprehension, THAT NO ONE MOVES until everyone understands and you've given permission, and that if the sentence is true of them, when you shout run, they should get up and run for a new seat. They CANNOT go to a seat within two seats of their own unless there only two people stand up. The person in the middle should run for a new seat regardless of whether the sentence is true of them.

Write your sentence in the TL on the board/display your sentence. This can be anything, but should describe at least one person in the circle:

I have at least four bedrooms in my house (Latin I right now).
I'm afraid that an evil person might be hiding in my shower (Latin III right now).
I wake up at 6:15 in the morning every day (Latin II right now).

They can target particular kids (I have a student who insists he got kicked out of his house for planting a tree in the bathroom, and you better believe that came up), target everyone, be general, whatever.

The kid in the middle should read the sentence loudly and clearly. When they have, ask everyone in the circle whether they understand, and if there are questions. If there are, answer them. Then have the student in the middle read the sentence again. Then shout in the target language, RUN! The kids to whom the sentence pertains should run for a new chair without diving or banging into things or knocking anyone over.

Rinse and repeat as necessary.

I find that this gets in great repetitions of new and old vocab, can target particular structures, can be totally untargeted, can be serious or ridiculous, can be variations on a specific theme (last week when the threes played, it was nothing but things we are and aren't afraid of), and gets the blood moving. Moreover, it requires that you circle and comprehension-check EVERYTHING, which can be difficult in games. Let me know what you think!