The ABCs is one of the first English lessons for 1st graders in Japanese junior high schools. Because school starts around the beginning of April, it's spring and it's a great time to run around outside while it's not too cold and not too hot.

Animal groups is an activity that uses the animal sounds as a way to communicate a student's agreement.

For junior high first graders, this group work activity encourages students to use their knowledge of the world and bring it to the English class.

Just like the old MB game, this activity is a lot of fun. It takes a while to explain/demonstrate but once the students start, they really get into it.

This is a way to make the daily greeting more active, a great greeting activity for kindergarten English lessons.

Birthday groups gets students walking around and saying the month they were born in while listing to other's answers and deciding if a group should be made. Basically, it's practicing the months focusing on the student's own birthday.

Rather than create a worksheet and use a lot of paper, doing a blackboard survey puts all the information up on the board for all students to see and review once the communication part of the activity is over.

This activity works well with most walk-and-talk information collecting communication activities. Also, it's a no-prep activity so you can use it any time.

With the goal of eliciting a response of "Me too.", students walk around and talk to many different students in the class. Use this activity to practice using "I like ~." or "I don't like ~."

Criss-cross or tate-yoko as it is known to most Japanese junior high students is a simple junior high warm-up game where you can avoid questions or may have to answer depending on if you are in the row or column of the person in the spotlight at that moment.

Students ask each other about what they have in their fridge at home, right now. A mundane daily recall activity for all us home cooks but in the English class this becomes a fun thing for students to ask each other about. This activity also includes writing the English words.

Students hide some stationary behind their back and their partners guess what it is.

Students challenge their partner to see who can say the most things. The person who can't think of something to say within 5 seconds loses and the game is over.

Students walk around drawing things for their friends. First they ask what their talking partner wants, then beat the clock drawing it for them. Lot's of fun and simulates real use of the language.

The students have a set time, say 30 seconds, to say something and pass the eraser back and forward in pairs. When the timer runs down, the student left holding the eraser loses. No preparation needed for this junior high warm up activity.

This game, just like the "What do you have?" game, is about using your poker face. It's very interesting to find out which students in your classes can look their classmates in the eye and lie with a straight face.

This warm up has students reviewing recently studied grammar in a very focused way. One student provides the Japanese and the next, the English. Play it out in a quick-fire way and students get caught up and can really enjoy reviewing grammar this way.

Janken losers have to jump, jump, jump! This activity may or may not be favorably received by your students, depending on their disposition. It'd work better with more active, happy students.

This is a great way for students to practice their fluency using numbers. It's the type of game that once students learn how to play it, you just have to say "Let's play number shiritori!" and students can get started by themselves.

This is a basic walking and talking activity using new English past tense for first graders in junior high. Download the excel spreadsheet and print out cards for the activity.

This activity for your junior high school 3rd graders lets the students use the "We call her Alex." grammar to quiz each other on famous things and places. Group work makes the prep easy for everyone!