Are you looking for fun guessing games for kids or your ESL students? If yes, you are at the right place! We have fun guessing game ideas for your classroom. Playing ESL activities like guessing games is a great way to use the last few minutes of a lesson in a fun and productive way. Let’s get into the ultimate list of guessing games!
ESL Guessing Game for Kids
ESL Guessing Games for Kids
Here is a list of some good guessing games for you to consider using in your ESL classroom. Guessing Games can be great time-killers and icebreakers.
1. Odd One Out: ESL Guessing Game
Odd One Out is a great no-prep ESL guessing game. Playing Odd One Out helps students use their English speaking, listening, and reading skills. If you want to make this guessing game even easier for you as an ESL teacher, then use the below video. In this Odd One Out quiz video, each question displays four words. Students have to figure out which one word doesn’t belong and say why.
2. ESL Guessing the Number: Guessing Games for Kids
Guessing the number is another ESL guessing activity that doesn’t require any preparation or props. To begin, get a volunteer. The volunteer will pick a number. Other students have to guess the number the volunteer chose. Every time other students try to guess, the volunteer has to tell if the number is higher or lower. If you want to make this ESL game a little bit more challenging, limit the number of guesses students can make. Eventually, someone will correctly guess the original number. That person can pick another number. Repeat it a few times. Isn’t it fun and easy?
3. How Many Candies? Guessing Games
This guessing game works especially well for holidays like Halloween, Valentine’s Day, and Easter. Around holiday time, get some holiday-themed candies. Put those candies in a jar and seal the jar so your students can’t see how many you have. Now, make your students guess how many candies there are in the jar. Give candies to whoever made the closest guess as a prize.
4. What Am I? Guessing Game
To play the What Am I? guessing game, put students into groups. Choose a topic for each group, like food, holiday, animal, job, or country. Any topic that students know well will work. Each group has to choose a word related to the chosen topic. Then, make students write down 3 hints about the word, starting from the most general. For example:
- I am a round fruit.
- I am orange.
- During Halloween, I often turn into a lantern.
Answer: pumpkin
If you want to play this game as a class for Thanksgiving, use the below What Am I? guessing game video:
5. Hangman or Snowman
This particular one is a very classic guessing game. Classic is the best, isn’t it? However, recently, Hangman has received criticism for its cruelty and offensiveness. Some people perceive Hangman to be politically incorrect.
So, what can we do about it if we wanted to play Hangman, which is a great word-guessing game? You can change Hangman to Snowman. Simply draw something else. Sometimes you will meet artistic students who want to draw something completely different. Let them do that!
Fun ESL Guessing Game Ideas
6. Pictionary: Guessing Game
If you want to play a guessing game that helps students review vocabulary from previous lessons, play Pictionary! It requires drawing, so you will need a whiteboard or a sketchbook.
Put students into groups of two or three. You can increase the number depending on the class size. One person from the group will draw a picture of a word that the teacher gives. The rest of the group has to guess the word by looking at the drawing. Count how many words each group guessed correctly. The group with the most answers is the winner.
7. Superlatives Country Guessing Game
If you want to play a fun guessing game using superlatives, try this country guessing game. ESL students will get used to using superlative adjectives like biggest, tallest, and highest. How well do your students know different country names?
8. Animal Guessing Games
Animal is always a great topic to use in an ESL classroom. Play this easy animal guessing game for kids!
9. Places Around Town: Vocabulary Guessing Game
If you taught students vocabulary related to places around town, test how well they know! This Places Around Town guessing game video shows images/video clips of different locations in town. Students get limited time to guess the answer. See how many questions your students answer correctly!
10. Running Dictation: Guessing Games Ideas
Looking for a slightly more challenging ESL guessing activity? If yes, try Running Dictation. This guessing game is for older or higher-level ESL students. This activity uses all 4 English skills: reading, listening, writing, and speaking. Students have to dictate sentences and put them in the right order to complete a coherent dialogue. This guessing game does require a bit of preparation!
Learn the details about playing running dictation:
11. Word Challenge Spelling Game
This is a guessing game students can play as a class. Everybody stands up. The teacher says a word. As a class, students have to spell out the word. Everyone takes a turn and adds a letter to complete the word. If someone says a wrong letter, that person sits down and is out of the game. It is a fun guessing and spelling game!
12. Clothing Vocabulary Guessing Game
If your students recently learned vocabulary related to clothing, play this word guessing game!
13. Charades: Vocabulary Guessing Games
Charades is another classic guessing game. The way it works is similar to Pictionary. However, students have to act out the word or phrase instead of drawing. Kids love to play this ESL guessing game; it is so much fun!
14. Mixed-Up Sentences
This ESL guessing game is great for practicing making grammatically correct sentences. Prepare mixed-up sentences with words in the wrong order. For example:
- is My brown. dog
- hop. can It
- to school. love I to
- movies. watch I to love
Students, in a group or individually, have to rearrange the order of the words and make grammatically correct sentences.
15. Flip Chart Vocabulary Review Guessing Game
Looking for a vocabulary review guessing game? The flip chart is a great one! You will need a notebook or A4 paper. Anything works if you can write a word on it and show it to students. One student will sit on a chair facing his or her teammates, and you will stand behind that student holding the notebook or paper with a word written on it. The teammates have to explain the word, and the student sitting has to guess the word.
Learn more about how to play Flip Chart Vocabulary Guessing Game:
More ESL Guessing Game Ideas
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Bolen, Jackie (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 62 Pages - 01/13/2016 (Publication Date)
Do you wan more great ideas for ESL guessing games for kids? Then you’ll definitely want to pick up this handy resource. It’s ideal for teachers!
You can easily find this book on Amazon. Have a look now:
FAQs About Guessing Games for Kids
Here are some of the most commonly asked questions about ESL guessing game ideas.
What is a fun guessing game?
Here is a list of the best guessing game ideas: Odd One Out, Guessing the Number, How Many Candies?, What Am I?, Hangman/Snowman, Pictionary, Running Dictation, Word Challenge Spelling Game, Charades, Mixed-Up Sentences, Flip Chart, and Vocabulary Guessing Games
What type of activity is a guessing game?
A guessing game is a type of game that players guess a thing, person, place, or word from an any chosen topic. In ESL classrooms, teachers tend to put students in groups for teamwork and collaboration. Students give each other hints and try to make the right guess.
What to fill a guessing jar with?
How Many Candies? is a type of guessing game using a guessing jar. This ESL game can be adjusted accordingly depending on the date or teacher’s preferences. You can fill a guessing jar with marshmallows, sunflower seeds, mini marshmallows, candies, pom-poms, beads, marbles, dice, legos, popcorn, and cheerios.
ESL Game for Kids
Guessing Game Ideas: Join the Conversation
What are your thoughts on these ESL guessing games? What is your favourite one? Try out these games in your ESL classroom, and let us know how it went! We’d love to hear from you.
Last update on 2022-06-17 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
