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Foreign Language Activity: Mystery Box

Thanks to its partnership with publisher Eye on Education, EducationWorld is pleased to present this activity from 100 Games and Activities for the Introductory Foreign Language Classroom, by Thierry Boucquey et al. The game allows students to identify body parts, use verbs associated with the five senses, and review any previous vocabulary in the target language.

Materials

  • Three to five standard shoe-sized boxes with a hand-sized slot cut into the top of each box. Number every box so it can be identified later.
  • Various items to be placed inside each box; students can either smell, feel, taste, touch or see the items.
  • A sheet of paper labeled one to however many mystery boxes exist (enough for each group to have one sheet so that they may record their group's guesses for each box).

Objectives

To have students learn the body parts and the verbs associated with the five senses as well as review any previous vocabulary.

Instructions

Split the class into groups of four or five students, depending on the size of the class. Give each group a "mystery box" with a mystery item inside.

Once each group has a box, call out a body part associated with the five senses: eyes to see, hands or fingers to touch, ears to hear, nose to smell, or mouth to taste. The students must then point to the body part and say the verb associated with it in order to identify the object: to see, to touch, to hear, to smell or to taste.

Next, have the students take turns within their groups guessing what is inside their "mystery box" using only that body part you have called out to guess with. It is best to use items associated with vocabulary students already know. Cut fruit is an excellent item to use because it can be easily identified by touch, taste and smell.

Once every member within a group agrees on the item in the box, they must write that guess on the sheet of paper next to the box's corresponding number. The activity rotates until each group has guessed the items inside every box. Then the groups compare answers, and the items in each box are "revealed" one by one.

Examples

In our Spanish class we used fruit so the students could smell with one box, maracas so they could shake the box and hear what sound the maracas made for another, and pan dulce so the students could taste the sweet bread in the last box.


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