Snowball Fight

The Snowball Fight ESL activity is a fun swapping technique which is often employed in other exercises.

6+5-15 mins

Setup

Each student will need two or three small pieces of paper. Students could take them out of their notebooks or you could give out recycled paper.

Activity

1. In secret, the students write a sentence on each of their papers, according to the target language. This is often something about themselves, but some activities use other types of sentence.
2. After they have written their sentences, the students screw their papers up into a ball.
3. When you shout “Snowball Fight!” the students throw the paper balls around the room, picking up and throwing any that land near them too.
4. When you say stop, the students stop and pick up the two or three papers closest to them. Make sure everyone has the same number of papers they started with.
5. The students take turns unfolding a paper and reading a sentence. Depending on the activity, students usually guess who wrote the sentence originally or respond to it.

Tip: When a student reads a sentence, ask them to peer-correct any grammatical errors.

Target Language

The Snowball Fight ESL activity can be used with a wide variety of grammar topics, depending on what is written on the papers. Students practise writing, reading, speaking and listening as well as correcting a language structure.

For example, in the Whose Life Is It Anyway activity students write statements about themselves in the tense of your choice. In Sticky Situations and Mini Disasters students create and say how they would respond to situations. In Crazy Requests students form and answer invitations/questions.