If you haven't played Gartic Phone, the objective of the game is to convey a thought through a picture or a sentence. This is the dumbed down version of Gartic Phone, where students can write sentences and draw. I find that a lot of kids enjoy the drawing aspect a lot.
I played this with 2nd year SHS students.
MATERIALS INCLUDED:
1) Just a simple worksheet.
You can even just ask them to use regular paper if you don't feel like printing out the worksheet.
2) A power point presentation of the instructions both in English and Japanese. The QR code leads to the Japanese explanation website. I find that leaving the slide with the example helps people understand the concept a lot more. You're free to change the text and words.
(Full transparency: I've deleted the example Gartic Phone games I had on my slides for the sake of my friends' privacies, as I was using a fun example of a game I had with my friends to help visualize the game for my students. If you have ever played this game, I think it would be a great visual example for them if you showed the .gifs of your game!)
EXTRA MATERIALS:
Timer
SETUP & RULES:
1) I had my students play in their rows. My school is set up so that students are generally sat in rows of 6 to 7 students each. If there are absent students, I ask the rows with less students to fill, or have people fill up the seats so that it's easier for them to pass on their papers.
2) Each row will have a time constraint.
For the first round, I gave every person 2 minutes per drawing and writing round. If their English level is lower, you can always change it up. For one class, we had 3 minutes for the first writing students and 2 minutes for everyone after. For a second round, I did 1 minute per writing/drawing in some classes, while some wanted 2 minutes writing and 1 minute drawing.
The point is that you want these rounds to be quick so they don't have time to use a computer or dictionary, as it usually yields to them having more fun whenever they make something weird.
If you had 7 students per row, and they all used 2 minutes per round, the round will be roughly 15 minutes.
3) On the worksheet, there is a spot for "My Sentence" and "My Drawing" (2x for two rounds). The first player will write a creative sentence.
For my students, I asked them to write creatively, as usually one term ("a cat") tends to pass through very normally. So please give them examples of creative sentences, such as:
"A cat wearing a hat"
"Two boys playing soccer"
"A dog and a cat singing in space"
3) Once a student has written a sentence, they will show* the sentence to the student behind them. That student will draw a picture according to the sentence, then pass only the drawing to the student behind them, and the proceeding student will write a sentence describing what they see. Repeat until everyone has had a turn.
(Having an odd number amount of students makes it easier to compare sentences, because the drawing is hard to share in a big group or class.)
* = If you have higher English level students, you can try to have them read the sentence to their classmate and not show it!
4) When the round is finished, you can have the last student read their sentence and then have the first student read what was really written. Usually you'll get some laughs from them.
OTHER:
1) Some students get really scared and panicked when they can't spell the word or if they don't know the word. In that case, let them know spelling doesn't matter and they can write to write it in another way. I've had students write stuff like, "he holds a something" and passed it on. Some students straight up will write the unknown word in Japanese (ex: "A boy holds a 柿").
2) Making the rounds fast is a good thing because the cons of this game is that sometimes, some students in the backseat are waiting a few minutes for their turn.
3) Replaying?: I suggest having the students switch seats, sit in a new row, or play from back to front!
This is just a quick and relaxing game for students.
Feel free to change up the rules!