WS: 5 Games for the "Special" Class

What's the politically correct word for the "special class"? Mentally handicapped?

I'm not sure, so sorry for any offence caused. Anyway, here are some fun games I've played with mine in the past.



Number Typhoon
Based off our regular Typhoon Game, this one uses a deck of cards with numbers (1-9), and some with a picture of a hurricane. Students take one at random, and another random card featuring a letter of the alphabet. If it's a number, that's how many points they get IF they can make a word starting with (or at least using) the letter.
9 points = one house (drawn on the board next to their name), as in the drawing below. If they get a hurricane card, they have to erase all their houses off the board.

Airplane vocab
If you've taught some vocab, here is a fun way to get them to practice. Have all students make a paper plane each. Then, position the cards around the room, on the board etc and tell them to throw their plane at that card. Fun and hilarity ensues.

Good and Bad
Again, with vocab cards. Lay out your cards on a table/floor. Have kids turn away, then place a number of Good or Bad cards under each, for example, have little gremlins for "Bad" and little Pikachus for "Good". Students then turn around and take turns saying a vocab word and checking what is under it. You can make this harder, of course, with "I want..." or "I like...". Students take and keep the good cards. The winner is the student with the most at the end.

13 and Out
Any number works for this. 13 is good for groups of 2-4. Students can say 1, 2 or 3 numbers (in sequence), then it's the next kid's turn. Whoever ends up saying 13 is the loser. This also works well with months, and can be used with any vocab if you've arranged the items in some kind of order (on the board etc).

Janken Race
I've written about this elsewhere,  but it's a great game for this type of class. Arrange vocab cards on the board, and split the class in two. One group must move along the cards from the left (one student at a time) and shout out the word in front of them, the other from the right. When the two meet, they janken. The winner continues toward the other side of the board, while the loser is replaced (from the first card again) by the next in their group. Get all the way across for a point. Switch teams round from time to time so that more difficult cards are equally divided. Can also be used with grammar points ("I like..." etc)


I've got a load of other games, activities and projects, so look out for part 2 soon.