Here’s a fun activity for teaching phonics to your higher level kindergarten English classes: Twister. You set it up much like the classic game of Twister (illustrated above) by drawing a 3×3 or 4×4 grid on the floor with an erasable whiteboard marker. In each box, you put a different letter of the alphabet. You then instruct the children to place their hands and feet on different letters and make the letter sound as they do so. Its best you draw a few grids, and have the children leading the activity on each grid so that you don’t have a situation with one child participating and 13 children watching. This way, you can rove and monitor the children as they work at each grid.
Clearly, you could adapt this game in many ways, including using it to review vocabulary, numbers, colors, and so on. For instance, you might even have the children draw the vocabulary items in each box, whether that’s by a drawing dictation or some other method.
