Hobbies And Interests
Character Chat
Even casual chatting reveals a lot about a person's character. For a game that encourages children to use their imaginations and drama skills and to consider other people's points of view, challenge them to a character chat. Give each child a famous character from history, popular culture, politics or literature they've been studying. Give girls a male character and boys a female character. Then announce an everyday topic such as breakfast, getting to work, or family. Ask each child to chat about the topic for one minute using the persona of the character they've been assigned.
Whispers
Good communication is as much about listening as it is about talking. Help kids understand the importance of paying attention to what others say when they chat with a game of whispers, which can show how easily messages can get mixed up. Divide the class into a girls' team and a boys' team and have each team stand together in a row. Whisper a phrase in the ear of the first child in the row, and ask him to pass it on in a whisper to the next child. When the last child receives the message, he has to repeat it to the class. Compare the final versions with the original. If a team passes on the messages correctly, it wins a point.
Chat A Minute
Are girls or boys better at chatting? Use a simplified version of the long-running BBC quiz show to see who can talk the most. Give a child a word or phrase, which they must then talk about without preparation for one minute. Start the timer as soon as they've got the word. The rules are that they can say what they want, but they must not repeat themselves, hesitate or deviate from the topic. If they break the rules, children can object and the timer is stopped. If the objection is deemed fair by the teacher, the objector takes over. Award points to whomever is talking when the minute ends. See whether girls or boys have gained more points.
Chat Back
A Chat Back game helps boost listening and information interpretation skills. Divide children into pairs of a girl and a boy. Each should write down a short scenario on a theme such as "Catching the Bus" featuring 10 to 20 events in order. In that example a child might start by writing: "I left my house at 9 a.m. but realized I forgot my lunch box (event 1).I ran back to the house to get my lunch but shut my fingers in the door as I was leaving (event 2). I was now late for the bus, so had to hurry and I ran straight into my next door neighbor (event 3). When the stories have been written down, the children should take it in turn to read it to their partner, who must then repeat the story back mentioning all the events in the correct order. Points are given for each event missed or told in the wrong order. The winner is the child with fewer points.