Prepositions Uno Game
This game was adapted from a similar activity found at www.onestopenglish.com. I wasn�t too crazy about this site�s cards so I made my own. I used this game as a review activity after teaching location prepositions (on, in, in front of, behind, by/next to, etc�) in my previous classes.
For each deck of Uno cards, you�ll need to print two copies of each page of cards, which will give you eighty cards. I printed the cards on a normal sheet of paper and then glued the sheets onto construction paper, each deck having a different color backing. I did this in case cards were accidentally mixed, I could still tell which deck of cards they came from simply from the color of the backing.
I also printed and laminated A4 size copies of the following cards to help in my explanation of the game beforehand: Reverse, Draw 2, Skip, Wild, The cat is by the car, The cat is behind the lamp, The fish is in front of the TV, The fish is in the toilet, The spider is on the ball, and The spider is under the chair. Basically, follow the same rules as the original Uno card game, but clear explanations of the game is essential as not all Japanese students are familiar with the game of Uno.
For those who don�t know or remember the rules, here�s a quick run down of the penalty cards. Skip � the next player skips one turn.
Reverse � the order of play goes in the opposition direction.
Draw 2 or Draw 4 � the next player draws two or four cards.
Wild � the discarding player picks the next character to be played (cat, elephant, fish, or spider).
Put students into groups of five people. Have each group choose a leader. The leader shuffles the cards and deals seven cards to each person. The remaining cards are placed in the middle face down. Flip over the top card and place it face up next to the face down pile. The first person to get rid of all his/her cards wins. The leader goes first by discarding any of his/her cards that matches the facing up card in the center. If the card is a penalty card (Skip, Draw 2, Reverse), the leader puts in back in the middle of the unused deck and picks another card. If the card is Wild, the leader may pick any character card to discard. You can discard any card that matches the character or preposition of the face up center card. For example, if the face up card is The fish is in the toilet, any �fish� card or any �toilet� card can be used.
IMPORTANT RULE! - Explain to the students that as they put down their card, they must say what the card is out loud. I make it a rule that if a player does not say it aloud, he/she must pick up another card. Explain that the other members are responsible for checking this and that it is to their benefit if they catch someone not saying the name of the card. This really gets the children keeping an eye on everyone else while providing more listening practice.
After the leader finishes his/her turn, the next person on the left goes, and so on and so on.
I printed Japanese translations of the penalty cards because I didn�t want the focus of the activity to be on the rules nor on the reading of the words, as there are quite a bit of them for a first time player to remember nor can most elementary school students read English. I wanted the focus to be on the speaking about the action on the cards as they played the game. In other words, when the student plays the card, The spider is on the ball, my hope was that the student would be able to recite this phrase merely by looking at the action on the card, not by reading the words on the card. But, I also put in the English words for the higher-level students who can read and enjoy the practice.
I also did not enforce the rule that when a player has only one card remaining that he/she must shout, Uno or One, because I thought the game had too many rules already.
This is a time consuming game to make but it�s a lot of fun and definitely well worth it. I hope you and your students have fun with it!
