The Goethe Institute has a simple boardgame using a number of Bauernregeln (farmers' proverbs). It is called Bauernrallye and the website has the gameboard as well as worksheets and other teaching suggestions.

My own Bauernregeln collection has over 800 proverbs arranged by months and other themes. They are great for cultural discussions in the classroom as they are short insights into attitudes and practices. Here are some more teaching ideas using Bauernregeln.

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I find Sudoku puzzles, particularly the hand-crafted rather than computer-generated ones, to be an addictive form of intellectual entertainment. The delight of seeing a solution unfold can be comparable to seeing a new vista with each step in a Japanese garden.

Logic is the key to solving Sudoku puzzles, and hence they can be a good class activity to combine simple language with higher-order thinking skills. Project or draw one on the board and encourage students to suggest where numbers can be placed.

For German-only classrooms, the words Zeile (row), Spalte (column), Block/Bereich (3x3 block) will be useful, as well as oben/unten, links/rechts. Rules and tips in German are on Janko's excellent puzzle site. For hand-crafted puzzles, go to the Guardian newspaper's collection.

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Imagine you've just had a class do an exercise with a number of questions and you want to turn marking it into something much more exciting than asking who has the answer to question 1. If your class works well in competitive teams, and the number of questions can be written in a rectangle or square (9,12,16 are good), use the concept of noughts and crosses.

Write the question numbers in a grid on the board and give each team a colour or symbol. Teams take it in turns to choose a question to answer and if they are right, they 'win' that number. To win the game, teams need to try to get three numbers in a row.

Variations include having more than two teams and only finishing when all of the questions are answered, with each team trying to get more lines of three numbers than the other team(s).

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Most people know the "I'm going to market and I need x game, where subsequent players need to recite an ever-growing shopping list.

This timed game is also played in a circle and can be used for similar vocabulary sets. A card with a vocabulary item is needed for each seat. One seat (to the right of the teacher's) is designated the winning seat and the aim for the students is to be the one in that seat when the time is up.

Imagine the topic is food. The teacher starts by saying, "I'm going shopping and we need bread. The student on the bread chair responds, "We have bread, but we need milk". The student on the milk chairs responds, "We have milk, but we need potatoes" etc. If a student doesn't respond quickly enough, or makes a mistake, he/she move to the seat to the left of the teacher and the others move one place to the left. The teacher starts again.

The game can be made easier by having a list of possible words on the board, and more complicated by regularly shuffling the placement of the words around the circle of chairs.

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A new resource on the Free Downloads for German page is the set of three domino games. These have the same vocabulary as the bingo games. Full colour and ready to print and cut out! These games may be freely distributed, as long as they are not modified in any way.

Use as one station in a "learning stations" lesson, or make multiple copies for whole class use. The cards can be used as a domino puzzle, where teams compete to finish first. As a game, the cards can be divided among the (2, 3, 5 or 6) players who take turns to place a card if possible. Any card can be used as the starting point.

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Hatschi-Patschi is a nonsense word in German associated with sneezing (like "ah choo" in English). This game is useful to review any personal information question-and-answer pair.

Players sit on chairs in a circle. One player doesn't have a chair and is sent out of sight long enough for the others to decide who will be "Hatschi-Patschi". In a class of 30, it is good to have three or four Hatschi-Patschis.

The player who was out comes inside the circle and asks other players the predetermined question. The others answer the question. However, if the person asked is a Hatschi-Patschi, they have to include that word in their answer. This is the cue for everyone to get up and swap chairs. The player left without a chair goes out for the next round.

This can be a good getting-to-know-you game with Q/A of "What's your name?/My name is..." Ages, birthdays, favourite colours - almost any personal question will work. My grade 8 classes are doing a mini-unit about the Three Little Pigs, and we played with "Wer bist du?/Ich bin ...". Students had to choose a character from the story for their answer.

There are safety concerns with this game: There needs to be enough space, and chairs need to be stable. The players need to be able to be trusted to move around without hitting each other or knocking others down or off chairs. With the right type of group though, this is a very popular game.

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The Obst-Bingo game (1482KB) now opens in full!

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The bingo games for fruit are here! Thanks to those who made suggestions for improvements. Just go to German Free downloads or English (ESL) Free downloads to see preview screenshots and download the game sets in pdf format.

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This is a good review game and can be used for any language item, from simple vocabulary to grammar or cultural aspects of the language.
Equipment needed: A stick-on basketball hoop and a soft ball. A rubbish bin can be a good substitute for the hoop. I like the hoop I have - it was very cheap and it is really bouncy, which means more points are gained from correct answers rather than sporting ability!
The game is similar to many other quiz games, with the students in teams. The first person/team to answer a question correctly gains a point, with a bonus point if they can shoot a basket. Very simple, takes no set-up time, and is a favourite with the students.

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'Elf' is of course the German word for 'eleven' and this game is used to practise numbers 1-11.
Simple version:
Students stand in a circle with a chair behind them. They take it in turns to say the numbers 1 to 11 in order. The person who says 11 is 'out' and has to sit down.
Far more fun version:
As above, but each student can choose whether to say one, two or three numbers. This leads to strategic choices to avoid getting out, particularly when there are only a few players left.
Cautions:
Students in larger classes can get bored/distracted/disruptive if they are waiting for their turn or are out and waiting for the round to finish. Be alert to students trying to get others out as a form of bullying.
Extensions:
This game can be adapted for any vocabulary set where there is a fixed sequence, e.g. months, days, colours in a rainbow.

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