Hot and Cold

This is an old favorite activity that gets students out of their seats and changes up the dynamics of the classroom. One student is trying to find the answer and the remaining students become the “teacher.”

Preparation

This activity requires virtually no preparation. However, if there are particular concepts that are to be reviewed, the teacher could use photos of concepts and post them around the room for more guessing options.

Procedure

1. Select one student to go out of the room (or turn his/her back to the class). 2. The rest of the class identifies an object in the class for the student to “find” (the object is in the open and could be anywhere within the room). 3. Have the student return and walk around the room trying to identify the object by name. The other students give clues as to whether s/he is “hot,” “warm/er,” “cool/er,” or “cold” in relation to the selected object. 4. When the object is correctly identified, s/he must use it in a sentence.

When to Use It

• To review vocabulary • To review yes/no questions if used in combination with Twenty Questions

Level

Skills

Practice

Materials

Photos/images if class is using them

Preparation Time

None

Activity Time

5–10 minutes

Variations

1. Students can give cryptic clues so more vocabulary is used in the activity. E.g., If the object is a clock: It has a face. It has two hands. 2. The activity could be run as a Twenty Questions game, with the selected student asking only yes/no questions of the others.

Is it on the wall?; Is it red?; etc. The selected student must identify the object within 20 questions or s/he loses. 3. In more advanced classes, students could be required to say what they would do if they had the object using the conditional tense. (If I had a bus, I would give my friends a ride to school.) 4. A variation of hot/cold is to use clapping signals to indicate how close the student is to the object. The closer s/he gets, the louder the clapping becomes, and the farther away s/he moves, the quieter the clapping becomes.