How to Play Mingle...A Versatile Game to Get Your Kids Up And Moving!

Today, I want to teach you guys a fun game that I play pretty frequently with my students! Mingle is a fun, versatile game that I made up last year when I was in a pinch for a fun game to play when teaching prefixes. Now I use it for just about everything! Let me tell you more......

I am all about movement. I hate when my kids are sitting for too long. It gets boring for them and it gets boring for me. Sometimes we all just need to move! That is how Mingle came to life! Here's how you play.....

Make some cards for whatever skill you are working on. I was working on linking verbs. I wanted to give my students a fun, active way to practice linking verbs (grammar can be boring, am I right?!).

Give each student a card. I explained to my students that today we were going to play Mingle (we've played once before). This time, we were going to to meet up with 2 other students to make a sentence with a linking verb (last time we only paired up with one other person).

Turn on the KidsBop Pandora station. As the music plays, students walk around the room and "mingle." This step is mostly to get them mixed up and moving. I tell my students that they shouldn't show anyone their card during this time. They mostly dance around. You'll get to see some sweet dance moves! When the music stops, I usually tell the students to "pair up." Students rush around the room trying to find a match. This step may get noisy, but don't worry! It's good noise!

Students find a match for their cards (or make a sentence) and then sit down so it is easier for students without a match to find a match!

We then go around and share our matches/sentences. For this version of the game, I had my students read the sentence, tell me the linking verb, and tell me what it was linking together.

After every group has shared, the music comes on and we mingle again! When the music stops, they pair up with a new set of people!

This game is a BLAST! And it is so easy to put together! Just make some quick cards with half an index card and you are set!

I have used this game with so many different language skills: linking verbs, prefixes and suffixes, and subject/verb agreement, to name a few. I don't teach math, but you could easily adapt this game to practice math skills!

Next time you need a quick, fun, active game to practice skills, give Mingle a shot! Your students will love it!