A snowball fight is one of those low-prep activities every Kindergarten teacher should keep in their back pocket. Simply photocopy some flash cards (or use mini-flash cards), and you’re good to go.
There are lots of variations on the simple snowball fight.
- Throw the snowballs, and when you shout ‘stop’, the children say what’s on the flashcard they’re holding.
- Cut the flash cards into two. Students have to find the other student who has the other half of their flashcard. If you’re teaching farm animals, for example, you might have children make the animal sound for the card they’re holding, in order to try and identify their partner.
- When teaching opposites, for example, I’ll have a card for ‘hot’ on one side of the room, and ‘cold’ on the other. Students holding a flash card that has the quality of ‘hot’ run to that flash card, and the others to the opposite side of the room.
- For older students (like Starter), one flash card can have a vocabulary image, its pair can have the word form. Again you could cut the word form in half and have the students find the student holding the other half of their word.
For my first few Kindergarten 1A classes, I like to ‘front-load’ the lessons with lots of fun. This way, the children get to have an early positive experience of learning English. The snowball fight is one of those activities that is perfect for that use, and the video clip at the top of the page is a fun way to introduce it.
