WE GO TOGETHER!

If you're looking for a warm-up activity that will also pair students up for what will come next, you got it!

Age Level - Any

Proficiency level - basic and above

Materials - a number of objects used in our daily life

Objective - to pair students up based on the objects they pick up and have them say why they are together.

Collect as many small objects as you have students in your group. You need to choose pairs of things that have some connection with each other. Here are some examples: a candle, a matchbox, scissors, a piece of ribbon, a sheet of paper, masking tape, a calculator, a printed math exercise, a picture of, or a miniature elephant, the map of Africa, thread, a sewing needle, a paper clip, keys, a key chain, some candy, a candy pot.

1. Display all the objects on your desk or on a tray.

2. As students arrive, they choose one of them and hold it.

3. When all students have their object, they show it to the group.

4. Students form pairs based on the connection existing between their objects. For example, the scissors and the masking tape; the scissors and the sheet of paper; the scissors and the piece of ribbon, and so on.

5. They tell the group why they are together: We are together because we need scissors to cut the ribbon; we are together because we need matches to light the candle, etc.

The next step can be whatever activity you have planned for the pairs.

VARIATION: If you can afford a little more time and want to make it more challenging, ask students to come up with an unusual purpose for the objects (mind appropriateness here!). So they can say, for instance, that they will use the elephant to ride home, since they don't have a car, or that they will use the ribbon to blindfold someone.