This is a classic game in the EFL community, so it’s been redone countless times, but my students LOVE this game, so I made my own materials for it.
Battle Ninjas is somewhat similar to the board game classic, Battleship. Students will receive an activity sheet with a grid, and they must draw some number of ninjas in the boxes of the grid.
The columns and rows of the grid are labeled with vocabulary words or images, so to choose a box, a student must specify which box using the target vocabulary. If the other students have a ninja in the chosen box, they cross that ninja out.
In my class, the goal is to end the game with as many ninjas alive as possible, but you can play with the opposite goal, where students try to cross out as many ninjas as possible.
In my version, one student chooses a column by asking a question, and another chooses a row by answering the question. This way, as many students can speak as possible and the result is more randomized.
This version of the game sheet is designed to teach target vocabulary related to rooms and objects found in a house. It is designed to be printed doubled sided on A4 paper and cut into quarters, so you can play 2 rounds while saving as much paper as possible.
I play 2 rounds. In the first round, students win by having the most number of ninjas alive at the end of the game. In the second round, I join in with my own activity sheet, and students try to beat the teacher by having more ninjas alive than me at the end.
To play, I pick students using this random number generator spin wheel. The students have class numbers, so when they see their own number show on the screen, they will know it’s their turn.
Students are so excited by the suspense of watching the wheel spin to see who will get picked. I really like this particular site for this because you can remove the number that was chosen so no student goes twice and everyone gets a turn. There is also a fun confetti animation when a number is chosen.
When played with 2 rounds and the spin wheel, this game takes my class of 22 students about 20-25 minutes.
You can download my instructions PPT and my activity sheet for this lesson as an editable PPT so you can adjust the game for your own lessons.