Musical Circle Pass ESL Game to teach and review

Musical circle Pass is similar to Hot Potato with more sensory development as kids feel different items(not only a “hot potato”). This is a quick game to teach new words or review previous lessons. Good thing is no preparation needed to play.

How to PLAY?

Sit all of the students in a circle one the chair or on the floor and place the toys in a bag. Play some music and have students pass the bag around the circle. Stop the music. Let the student holding the bag take an item (animal/fruit/vegetables/etc) from the bag and answer “what do you see?” The student can answer “I see a cow” or any other target language. Start playing the music and do the same thing so that all of your students have touched a toy. For larger classes it’s better to give the toy/flashcard it self to the kids and ask them to toss it around the circle but for younger kids it might require some management during the game since they all wanna hold for longer. Let them know we are playing a game and we need to pass it quickly.

Appropriate age for Musical Circle Pass

You literary can see the excitement in faces of kids under 12 years specially when teachers ask them to pass quickly or say out loud “it’ll blow up soon” or “the song is about to stop”. We don’t recommend this game for kids over 12 unless there is a twist with more challenges for older students and adults.

Suitable class size

Musical Circle Pass takes time to play if kids are more than 8 and the way each teachers play it (with a bag or just tossing items). It is not a suitable game for a class with over 20 kids and the best class size to play is less than 10. Enjoy!