ESL Warmers for Kids
Warmers! Warmers! ESL Warmers!
This page is for teachers who are looking for fast, five-minute warmers for ESL kids' classes. I hope you find some lovely warmers ideas for your classes here. Every ESL lesson for kids should ideally start with a warmer. ESL warmers for kids are designed to welcome the child to the English classroom and get their mind ready for the hour of English learning ahead.
ESL warmers for kids provide an easy and no-stress context for the children to start thinking in English and to prepare their mind for learning new English words and phrases in the class. This page contains many ESL warmer ideas for young learner classes and will give TEFL teachers some quality TEFL warmer ideas for children.
Got a favourite warmer not listed? Send it over on our contact page and we'll add it to our list and credit you for it!
The M&M Game
Everyone loves M&M’s! This awesome ESL warmer uses M&M’s and question topics according to which colour students picked. Full downloadable question sheets in PDF for all ages of students…check it out!
Stand up, Sit down
This is a simple warmer where the kids either stand up or sit down to answer questions. Kids take turns to be the person asking the questions. Excellent practice for speaking, listening and will get your class moving and engaged.
This ESL warmer is particularly good for teaching imperatives.
Match
This is a nice warmer, which can be used for any class regardless of age or English level, simply change the content to make it age or level appropriate. In a nutshell, you'll be giving a piece of paper to each student with a colour, shape, word, whatever, and have to walk around the class looking for the student whose paper matches their own.
Spot the Difference
All English teachers reading this right now would have played a Spot the Difference game, probably on a rainy Sunday afternoon or a long car journey somewhere as a kid, you know, where you look closely at two similar pictures, trying to find six small differences. Well actually, playing Spot the Difference in your ESL classroom is an excellent activity or warmer to practice language!
Mysterious Bag
This is a lovely little ESL warmer for kids which will immediately pique their interest in your class. It will get their sensory juices flowing and is particularly useful as a warmer if you've been teaching classroom objects, household items, fruits and vegetables, animals, shapes, toys, all common topics in young learner English textbooks.
Memory of a Goldfish
This is a devilishly simple warmer, which will get all of your students involved from the get go! This ESL warmer for kids will test their vocabulary skills, their recall ability and, most importantly, their ability to remember what the other kids in the class have said before them.
Cleopatra's Hieroglyph Codes
This activity can be used either as a warmer or an activity if you find that you have a few more unexpected minutes at the end of your class, but have finished your lesson plan.
In a nutshell, you'll be writing out the letters of a secret message on the board using pictures for your students to work out. This secret message is your name.
Who am I?
An ideal warmer / icebreaker for classes early on in the school term, 'Who Am I?' allows students to learn more about each other, as well as getting to know each other's names, an important component to getting your class bonded, having a close learning environment and for building closer student relationships.
Alternatives to Hangman
Hangman is a classic board game for children to guess the Word of the Day, but it can be a bit gory for little ones or for kids in countries which have never played Hangman before. Here are some good alternatives to Hangman.
Drill Sergeant
Drill Sergeant is a superb ESL warmer for children and teens, particularly if you've been teaching imperatives i.e. ‘sit down’, ‘stand up’, ‘turn around’, ‘touch your nose’, etc. This ESL kids warmer will make your ESL students use the target language well and have to think quickly in English.