These 10 warm-ups are fun and great for waking students up and getting them thinking about English at the start of class.

1. Agree/Disagree (5-10 minutes)

Write “I agree” on one side of the board and “I disagree” on the other side. Have everyone stand up and come to the front of the classroom. Say a statement, such as, “Dogs are better than cats.” or “Students shouldn’t bring cellphones to school.” Let students run to “agree” or “disagree” depending on their answer.

You can do the same activity with “Yes” on one side of the board and “No” on the other side, and say things like, “I have brothers.” or “I always remember to do my homework.”

This fun and simple activity gets students up, moving, listening to English, and it can be great grammar or vocabulary review for your students. Just make your statements match the grammar your class is learning at the moment.

2. List Knockout (10 minutes)

Give students two categories, preferably ones that are relevant to what they’re learning in class. For example, I recently gave my students “Space” and “Sports” as those two categories were the topics of our last two units.

Now divide the students into two teams. One team is going to write as many words for one category as they can (for example, Space), and the other team will write words for the second category (for example, Sports.) Put a 3 minute timer on the board and let students write as many words as they can.

Note: If your class is large, you can allow multiple groups in the same team, all working on the same category. It’s okay if they are writing on different pieces of paper. Make sure each team has the same number of small groups to make it fair.

When 3 minutes are up, students stop writing. Now tell students that they are going to have to think of words for the other team’s category. For example, the Space team would need to say Sports words. Choose which team will go first, and tell them to shout out the words as they think of them. The other team will have to cross out any words they hear that are the same as the ones on their list. Put a one minute timer on the board and let one team shout the other team’s words. Then repeat for the second team.

At the end, each team counts how many words they have, not including the crossed-out words. The most is the winner.

This loud game gets students categorizing vocabulary, which is a very useful skill to have while learning a new language, as well as practicing their spelling, listening, and recall skills.

3. Throw a ball and say a word (5 minutes)

Everyone stands up. Say a category and throw a ball (or stuffed animal, balloon, crumpled paper, etc.) to a student. That student says a word in the category and passes to the next student. Students who can’t think of a word or who say the same word as someone else are out and have to sit down. 

This is a very simple intro activity and great for getting an idea of how much your students already know about a new topic before starting it.

4. Riddles (5-10 minutes)

Who doesn’t love riddles? They’re a great way to instantly get a class engaged and interested as they all try to solve the riddle before their neighbor does.

This list of riddles from Good Housing is perfect for 4th grade and up. 

5. Jump and Spell (5 minutes)

Have students stand up. Tell them a vocabulary word. Have them spell the word and jump at the same time, so if students are spelling “interesting,” they’d need to jump 11 times.

This warmer is quick, simple, and fun. If your students are reluctant to do it, simply do it with them. There’s nothing students love more than seeing their teacher do something ridiculous.

I-N-T-E-R-E-S-T-I-N-G!

6. What Do I Have? (Realia) (2 minutes)

Bring in an object relevant to your lesson and place it in an eco-friendly bag. Show students the bag, shake the bag, and let them guess what it is. You can give them clues by letting some students touch the outside of the bag. If they need more clues, they can reach into the bag but not look. If they still need clues, you can show a portion of the object very quickly, then put it back in the bag. You can also play this game with multiple objects in the bag.

After students have guessed the object, see if they can guess the topic of today’s lesson.

7. Wordle

I’ve talked about Wordle on Oscar Lessons several times before, and that’s because it’s such a great puzzle game for English class. You can play the original version here or you can make up your own using different colored whiteboard markers or pieces of chalk.

8. Vocab/Grammar Review (5 minutes each)

Warm-up time is a perfect time to review what your class has already learned. These activities all work as amazing warmers.

1. Correct the mistake – Put a few sentences on the board with mistakes and see who can spot and explain the mistakes the quickest.
2. Jumbled Words – Jumble up some vocabulary words. Don’t give any hints. See who can unscramble the words the fastest.
3. Make a Sentence – Put one or several vocabulary words on the board. See who can say a grammatically correct sentence with the word. 
4. Mouth the Word – Choose a word the students know and mouth the word without making any sound. See who can guess what you said.

9. Hot potato (5-10 minutes)

Give students a ball. Play some music, let students pass the ball and stop the music. Whoever is holding the ball has to answer a question. Repeat.

10. Spidergram (5-10 minutes)

Put a topic on the board and circle it. If it makes sense to the word, then you can add a few subtopics by writing the subtopic, circling it, and connecting it to the main word. Then have students come up and add onto the spidergram.

If you want to make this into a game, then put students into groups. Give each group a different colored whiteboard marker. Assign one writer for each group and have that person come up to the board. Tell students whichever team adds the most to the spidergram wins. Whenever everyone is ready, yell “Go!” and let the chaos ensue. Only the writer can stand at the board, so his or her teammates are going to have to shout their ideas up at their friend.

At the end you can erase answers that don’t make sense and put a cross through repeat answers. See what’s left and count up how many each team has written to choose a winner.

Do you have any warmers that work well with your class?

Comment your ideas below and if you want more ESL games, check out 7 Spelling Games – That Actually Help Students Learn to Spell.