15 no prep games using erasers

This article is part of a series on using common classroom objects to practise all kinds of language. Although there is nothing like the interest prompted by bringing something into class that they don’t expect to be there (e.g. a puppy), using the things that are already in the school cuts down on preparation, saves money and organisation, gives you the chance to revise the names of those common objects when giving instructions, and could even remind them of the language they were practising every time they see the object again.

Erasers are a particularly great object to use in games as they are soft and safe (unlike playing with scissors!), similar in appearance to each other but with lots of variations in any class, and most of all able to erase! Here are 15 of the many ways that you can use a humble rubber to practise all kinds of target language:

1. Reverse hangman

I’m a not a huge fan of the hangman spelling game*, but there is a certain appeal to the scoring building up until it makes a complete picture. A less gruesome version is to have a complete person on the board and erase its body parts bit by bit until he or she has disappeared. Students can then do the same thing in groups with a pencil drawing and eraser. You can add language to this by letting them nominate which body part they want to be erased next, or letting them describe all the body parts that should go on the original drawing (each body part they can think of obviously giving them one more chance to complete their challenge).

2. Disappearing dialogue

Another thing you can make disappear on the board and then make students do the same with erasers is a dialogue. Write a dialogue on the board (maybe eliciting it from the students), get the students to read out the whole thing, and then ask one person or team to nominate a word. Delete that word and then ask the next person or team to read out the whole dialogue, including the missing word. Continue round and round the class until the whole dialogue has disappeared and so they are saying it just from memory. Students can then play the same game in groups, writing the dialogue in pencil and then erasing it word by word. You make the memory load more challenging by erasing every example of the word that they nominate, e.g. every “are” in the text at one go. To make it easier, you can put phonemic script, pictures etc as clues to what the missing words are.

3. Whose eraser is it?

As I mentioned in the introduction, people’s erasers are usually slightly (or sometimes very) different from each other. You can use this property to practice possessive forms like “It’s John’s eraser” or “It’s hers” or “It’s her eraser”. The simplest way is just to spread everyone’s erasers across the floor in the middle of a circle of people, choose one and give points to the first person to shout out whose eraser it is (with people obviously not allowed to speak when it’s their own eraser). This can be changed into a chain memory game by choosing one eraser, then putting a second one next to it, then a third etc, with students making a longer and longer chain of “The first eraser is Maria’s” type statements. This is more fun if you pile the erasers up on each other to make a tower rather than just laying them side by side.

You can add some interest by slowly revealing the eraser, for example by pulling it out of a bag or putting it in your hands and slowly opening your fingers. In a small class, they could also feel through the bag to try and guess. To add more language, you can describe the eraser without showing it (“It’s quite big. It’s a rectangle. It’s a little bit dirty”) until someone guesses whose it is.

4. A bag full of rubbers

Trying to feel erasers in a bag can also be used to practice other language, for example numbers and there is/ there are (“How many erasers are there?”), shapes, the vocabulary of the things the erasers are supposed to look like or smell like (e.g. fruit), and superlatives (find the biggest eraser).

5. Erasers as counters

Being soft (and therefore safe) and slightly different from each other also helps make erasers perfect counters when playing board games. You can add to the fun element by taking away the dice and instead asking students to flick their erasers onto the next square that they want to try. Ambitious students will therefore try to skip loads of squares by flicking a long way, but if the eraser ends up not touching any of the squares of the game they miss a go and have to go back to their previous square.

This flicking variation can also change almost any textbook page into a game. Students take turns flicking their erasers around the page to land on pictures, sentences or words. If they can answer a question about that thing from their partner, they can write their name on it and score a point. Students continue until everything on the page has someone’s name on it.

6. Flip the eraser

Another way erasers can be used to help with a board game is to draw a head and tail on opposite sides and flip it like a coin. Students can keep flipping until they get a tail, and move one square for each head they had got by that point. If they will be too demotivated by staying on the same square, they can start on one point before they start flipping. An eraser’s advantages over a coin are that it is soft and safe, doesn’t fly so far if they flip badly, and usually takes less searching for than a coin. The disadvantage is that it will favour one side more than a coin will.

7. Slam it down

Another way that erasers can be used to turn any textbook page or worksheet into a game is for one student to slam an eraser down onto the page, thereby covering something with it. They can then ask a question about what is under the eraser to test the other students, e.g. “What is it?” (for a word or picture) or “Is there a… under the eraser?” The eraser could also be dropped or flicked rather than slammed down.

8. Throw it around

Depending on the impact on discipline in your classroom, you can also get students throwing erasers. A nice game to practice prepositions is to put a bucket or box on a table for them to take turns trying to throw their erasers into. If they miss, they have describe where their eraser ended up (e.g. “It’s between the table and the door, next to Martin’s eraser”) to get it back and be able to try again. They could also throw and catch them like a ball while asking questions (or just pass them if that could get out of hand).

9. Hopscotch

Another game that can be played by throwing or flicking erasers is with a row of flashcards. Like the board game flicking game described above, students choose what flashcard to flick or throw their eraser onto next, having to actually land on that card and answer a question about it to be able to move to that place.

10. Balancing

Another physical thing students can do with their erasers is balance them in the place where you tell them to. You can practice body parts and prepositions with “Under your chin” and “On your head”. Similar fun places around the classroom include “On the door” and “Under the table’s leg”. This game is even more fun with a range of classroom objects, e.g. rulers and crayons as well as erasers.

11. Towers

Balancing can be made even more fun by trying to put ten erasers on your head at the same time. By counting as you do this and nominating different places to build the tower, students can practice numbers and classroom objects or body parts. They could also predict how many you will be able to balance before you start or try outbidding each other (“I can balance twelve on my knee” “I can balance thirteen on my knee”) to try and balance them. You could also bet on whether you can balance the number that you say (“Teacher can/ can’t balance three on her nose”).

12. Erasers all over

A less energetic game that involves erasers around the classroom is to place five to twenty erasers around the room before they come in (perhaps without warning or explanation, to get them wondering). Students then listen to your hints or ask you questions (e.g. “Is it near the door?”) to work out which of the erasers you are thinking of, and then maybe to pick it up.

13. Top Trumps/ Boasting game

You can practice comparative adjectives with erasers by giving students one point every time they can think of a way of comparing their eraser to yours or their partner’s, e.g. “My eraser is dirtier/ thinner/ thicker/ longer/ heavier/ smellier/ newer than your eraser”

14. Guess how many erasers in my hand

This is a nice easy numbers practice game, that can be made more amusing with “How many erasers are in my sleeve/ sock/ mouth?”, with the last one being none but suggesting otherwise with my pumped out cheeks.

15. Describe your eraser to get it back

Students can use shape, colour, size, and comparatives to describe their erasers, getting a different person’s if they aren’t specific enough.

*(For one thing, how many of our students have spelling as a priority? See Hangman Problems, Solutions and Variations for more of my thoughts on this)