photo credit: Pixabay (license)

Clap Slap is a simple game which is great fun with younger children. It practices listening comprehension, word groups and also helps them to let off a little steam!

Decide first on an appropriate word group. This will depend on your class and their level, but could be, for example:

• things (nouns in general)
• fruit
• action words (verbs‏‎)
• colors
• …

Anything, in fact, that your class knows already.

Stand in front of the class and get all the students to stand up. Explain that you will call out some words. If they hear one from the word group you specify they must clap their hands once. If the word they hear doesn’t belong to the word group they must slap their thigh.

Give a few examples here and check that the class understands what to do.

Suppose you choose colors as the word group. You might call out:

1. Red — clap
2. Blue — clap
3. Dog — slap
4. Cat — slap
5. Orange — clap

If you like, as you near the end of the game you can speed up your delivery, giving out the words faster and faster till the class is in complete disarray!