The Rainbow Game
Benefits of the game
This quick and funny rainbow game is great for everyone to get energised, get moving, listening and performing a variety of actions. It’s great to play at the start of the session and gives players a chance to shake it out and get going! So if you have space for your group to move about and you want to wake them up and get them moving then this is for you.
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Good for all ages. Good for all group sizes.
How to play
One person (normally group organiser/teacher, but could be class participants) calls out different colours. Each colour has an action attached to it (see below). The final person to complete the action is out.
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The commands
RED - Freeze (not moving allowed and eliminated if they do move).
GREEN - Run around the room.
YELLOW - Sit down with legs crossed.
BLUE - Jump with hands up touching the ‘sky’.
PURPLE - Turn around on the spot.
ORANGE - Dance.
PINK - Go to sleep (can be on the floor, or standing with hands under head asleep).
BLACK - Zombie (walk around the room arms in front and make noise like a zombie).
BROWN - Clap the hands.
RAINBOW - 4 people together make a rainbow. The first person makes a ball on the floor, the second on hands and knees goes over the first person and the third and fourth people stand over the top, linking hands to make the rainbow. (see photo)
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Tips for playing
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When students know the game well enough you could allow them to say two colours as one command. For example ‘blue black’ would result in jumping zombies. It adds even more fun to the game!
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Sometimes we like to add a theme to the game and the theme is something to improve character work. For example old people or animals. This makes some of the actions very interesting and creative!
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Can be played by using coloured paper, which is inclusive for deaf/hard of hearing students and ESLs. Instead or as well as saying the name the person choosing the commands also holds up the coloured paper.
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Love 2 Learn English also writes plays and shows for children/schools with no licence fees. Simply pay for the script and use it how you want.
Check out the Scripts & Monologue pages here.