Home Sweet Home

Objective & content

A projected team quiz on the home, there is / there are and prepositions of place, with real photos, for one game of 35 to 45 minutes. The class plays in 2 to 4 teams through seven rounds: What room is it? (a photo and a word bank of rooms: kitchen, living room, bathroom, bedroom, garden, garage, dining room; teams write a full sentence such as "It's a kitchen."), True or false? (a sentence with there is / there are about a photo, such as "There are four chairs."; a bonus point for the right sentence), Where is it? (a gap with a word bank of prepositions: in, on, under, next to, behind, in front of, between), Where is she? (a teenager at home; teams write the room and the place), Zoom in! (a close-up of an object: what is it and what room is it in?), Look and remember (30 seconds to look at six rooms, then questions about them) and Name three! (three things in a kitchen, a bedroom, a bathroom). There are 38 questions and 49 points. Pupils meet about 60 words for rooms and furniture.

Pedagogical guide

Every question slide is followed by its answer slide, so the class sees the answer at once and the teacher only keeps the score. This quiz tests there is / there are (There's a bath. There are two sofas. There isn't a TV.) and the prepositions of place, and teams write sentences, not single words: accept any correct sentence, with or without the contraction ("There's a bath." or "There is a bath."). The photos are real rooms and real teenagers at home, so pupils describe what they see. In What room is it? the word bank stays on the screen, so pupils choose the room and concentrate on the structure. True or false? makes pupils look closely and check singular and plural (one guitar or two?); a bonus point goes to the team that corrects a false sentence ("There isn't a shower. There's a bath."). Where is it? uses a word bank of seven prepositions, and pupils match each one to a photo (the cat is on the sofa, the football is under the desk, the sofa is between the two plants). In Where is she? teams write two sentences, the room and then the place ("She's in the kitchen. She's at the table."), which gives a good model for describing a photo. Zoom in! starts with a close-up, so teams guess before they see the whole room and can use "Maybe it's a lamp." Look and remember asks questions about six rooms the class saw for 30 seconds: it practises "Is there a...?", "How many... are there?" and the short answers "Yes, there is." and "No, there isn't." Name three! accepts any right word: the answer slide lists the most likely ones, and your pupils may find others. Every round opens with a Useful phrases box: read it with the class before you start, so teams can use it to speak and write. The quiz stays at A1+ level, in British English. Useful language for the teams: "There are two beds in the room.", "The lamp is next to the bed.", "She's in front of the mirror." To extend the game, add a describe-and-draw round: a pupil describes a room from a photo ("There's a sofa under the window.") and the other teams draw it, then compare their drawings with the photo.

Suggested procedure

1. (3 min) Make 2 to 4 teams and draw a score table on the board. Each team has one sheet of paper and one writer.
2. (4 min) Round 1, What room is it?: show the photo, leave the word bank on the screen and give 20 seconds; teams write a full sentence. Show the answer slide. 1 point for each right sentence.
3. (6 min) Round 2, True or false?: show the photo and read the sentence; teams write True or False. 1 point for each right answer, and 1 bonus point for a right sentence when the answer is false.
4. (6 min) Round 3, Where is it?: show the photo and the sentence with the gap; teams write the preposition from the box. 1 point for each right answer.
5. (5 min) Round 4, Where is she?: show the photo; teams write two sentences, the room and the place. 2 points for each question: 1 for the room, 1 for the place.
6. (5 min) Round 5, Zoom in!: show the close-up and give 20 seconds; teams write what it is and what room it is in. Show the whole photo. 1 point for each right answer.
7. (6 min) Round 6, Look and remember: show the six rooms for 30 seconds, then hide them and read the questions; teams write the answers. 1 point for each right answer.
8. (5 min) Round 7, Name three!: read the question; teams write three things. 1 point for each right word.
9. (2 min) Add up the points on the board and show the last slide to find the winners.

Adaptations

[S] In round 1, let teams point to the room in the box or say the sentence instead of writing it, and do the first question together before the teams write. In round 3, read the seven prepositions aloud with a gesture for each one before you start. In round 6, show the rooms for 45 seconds instead of 30.

[A] In round 1, ask teams for a second sentence about the room ("There's a big bed in it."). In round 4, ask teams to add what the person is doing. Add a describe-and-draw round: a pupil describes a room from a photo and the other teams draw it, then compare their drawings with the photo.

Materials & prerequisites

A projector or screen for game.pdf (78 slides in 16:9, one PDF page per slide, turned with the arrow keys), the board for the score table, and a sheet of paper and a pen for each team. Pupils should already know the verb be (it is, she is) and a few common words for rooms and furniture such as kitchen, bed and table. The quiz works well as a revision game at the end of a unit on the home, there is / there are or prepositions of place, or as a reward at the end of a lesson.