Rhyme Robber: the game that helps children improve their listening skills

Today I'm going to tell you about one of my favorite board games: Rhyme Robber.It's produced by Orchard Toys, the British company I mentioned in a previous post,  and it's a perfect filler for these last hot days of school.

The most remarkable ESL purpose of this game is to develop listening skills at a very young age through sound recognition and rhyming skills, which, as I already wrote here, are crucial in order to build effective communication skills as adults.

In the game box you'll find 4 rhyme robber boards showing a child with a robber's swag bag (1 for each player), 48 rhyme cards and a rhyme guide board, where all the pictures and their respective words are grouped by rhyming sounds and colors.

Each player is given two cards, which they hold in their hands without showing to anybody else, then 4 more cards are placed face up in the centre of the table, while the rest of the cards are left face down in a pile next to these.

The youngest player starts and if they are holding a card that rhymes with one of the four cards in the centre of the table, then they can take the matching card while saying, for example, 'rake rhymes with lake', and put both cards face up on top of their robber board in their character's swag bag. If the next player has in their hand a card that matches a card on another player's board, they can choose to take that one, instead of one from the centre of the table. In any case once a player puts down a card, they have to take another one from the pile so that they are always holding two cards. The game ends  when all 48 cards have been stolen or no more cards can be stolen.
 
The game is especially effective with preschoolers and first graders straight out of the box: you'll only have to be there to read the names under the pictures out loud to help children recognize the rhyming sounds. Very small kids won't love the fact that other players can steal their cards so I'd suggest not insisting that they follow that rule, especially since we should focus on the development of listening skills more than anything else.
 
Once I noticed that older kids have stronger rhyming skills I suggested an extension of the game: through reading rhyming books I encouraged my students to look for new rhyming word families which they would then copy onto paper, cut out in circles, and added to the basic game in order to make it last longer.

My students' favorite books are ones written by Dr Seuss, the author of Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, The Lorax, Horton Hears a Who! and many more, as well as others by Julia Donaldson such as The Gruffalo, What the Ladybird Heard, Room on the Broom, The Snail and the Whale,  A Squash and a Squeeze among others.

Click on the links to Orchard Toys, Seussville and Julia Donaldson websites to entertain your childish soul as much as it needs :)

--> Quiero leer esta entrada en castellano

              

    



  
 

Teaching English Through Games 3: ORCHARD TOYS

One of the best aspects of my job is the opportunity to use toys and educational games as tools for teaching English.

I really enjoy playing with my young students, noticing their concentration and the effort they put into doing their best and actively participating in the game.

But, what's even better is how easily they learn from play experiences. After a couple of times they've already acquired vocabulary and grammar structures without even noticing it!

One of my favorite educational games producer is Orchard Toys, a company based in Norfolk, UK.

Their games and puzzles are highly educational and at the same time really nice, creative and fun.

I personally had the opportunity of using 'The Shopping List': a memory game where each player has to fill his own shopping trolley with all of the items on his shopping list.

The items are drawn on little square cards, that have to be placed face down on the table. The first player turns over a card and if the item is on his shopping list then he can put it in his trolley. If not, the card must be placed face down again on the same place and the turn passes to the next player.

So, while you're trying to fill your trolley you can also review or introduce new vocabulary, some place prepositions like in and on, besides having your  students 100% concentrated.

Orchard Toys really sells many products that, as they say, make learning fun. 

I warmly recommend them!

             

I design series of activities based on a communicative method that will help children to practice the grammar they're learning at school.

Many ESL activities, I see, are nothing more than 'fill in the blank' exercises that only teach kids how to fill in blanks and miss the whole point of learning to speak and understand a new language.

It's much easier and more fun to learn by doing, and you'll be surprised at how quickly you'll see valuable results!!! 

You can get my activities on my online store:

http://childreneslworksheets.bigcartel.com