I have/who has is a great game to really drill vocabulary into the minds of your students. It’s also really simple to set up and play. All you need is one of the many card decks I’ve linked at the end of the article. Deal the cards to the students and have them sit in a circle. Pick a student at random to start with any card on their hand. They will read the card out loud and place it in the center. Then the other students will look at their own hands to see if they have the next card. This continues until all cards are in the middle. Since this is a collaborative game there is no real winning or losing, just simple fun. Which is great – really! But if you want to get even more out of these card decks, there are some variations you can try.
Use A Timer
Using a timer/stopwatch can add just the right amount of pressure/stress to make the game more exciting for your students. For my younger classes I usually give them two minutes to complete the game. To make it even easier for them, I may let them place their cards down so they can see everyone’s cards and help each other. If the timer goes off before they can finish, they don’t get points.
Sometimes we play the game multiple times using a stopwatch instead of a timer. Once the first game is finished, we write down the time and try to beat it in the next game. With older classes I may even make things riskier by letting them bet their points.
Scavenger Hunt
If you want to have your kids moving around more and expel some excess energy, you can hide the cards around the classroom before class starts. Give one student a single card to read out loud and then have them all race to find the other cards and put them in order. This version of the game takes longer to finish so I would do this only when I have extra time to spare – or if I’m really tired and want the kids to run around while I sit and watch them go.
Team Up
Want to make the game more competitive? Divide the class into teams and tell them they are playing for points! Print out the same deck twice and hand a deck to each team. Then, have the teams race to see who can finish their deck first.
If you have an account on teachers pay teachers, you can easily find various decks for this game; all made to practice different vocabulary and grammar.
If you don’t, I found a site with a downloadable version which you can use to make your own cards here. I couldn’t find any other site that doesn’t used TPT.
And right here are my own CVC decks for your students to enjoy: