Body Parts - ESL Vocabulary Games for Kids & Adults

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The Body Parts ESL Game is a fun and interactive activity for improving students’ understanding of body vocabulary. The game also allows students to practice listening skills while drawing funny looking cartoon characters with their classmates.

Student Level: Beginner, Intermediate

Age Group: Kids

Body Parts ESL Game Preparation:

Since this game is targeted towards younger learners, you may want to pick up some colored pencils or crayons. Pencils or pens work well too. It can be played on the board as well.

Body Parts ESL Game Guidelines:

To start, draw a funny character on the board so all the students can see.

Next, draw lines to different parts of the body. Elicit the names of the body parts with the correct spelling. Make sure to label as many body parts as you can from head to toe. For example, you could even go into specific detail about the eyelashes, elbows, belly button, and toenails etc.

However, for lower level students, keep the vocabulary more basic.

After labeling all of the body parts of the funny character, review the saying the words. Point to different parts of the body and get the class to say the body part. Correct pronunciation as needed.

For more advanced students, you could have them make complete sentences using different structures or to practice specific grammar points.

Adjectives:

I think the monster has a massive nose.

Comparatives:

The monster’s feet are smaller than my feet.

Superlatives:

The third toe is the smelliest.

Parallel Structure:

The scary monster has a massive nose, small feet, and smelly toes.

From these examples, you can see how easy it is to adapt the task for the activity.

For the next step, now that they understand the goal of the game, erase the character on the board.

The class can then create a new character by collaborating together. Have each student come up on their own and tell them one body part to draw. For instance, tell the first student to draw a big eye. The next student can draw the nose and so on.

By the end of the drawing session, they will have created an impressive looking character which should get a lot of laughs.

Finally, you can review the body parts of the new character like you did with the previous one.

Again, remember to adjust the difficulty of the task depending on the students’ levels.

Another method that works well is if you create cards with the body part vocabulary. Hand out the cards randomly and the students can create their own characters in pairs or in groups. This way, the task will be more student-centered and you can spend more time monitoring their progress and give continuous feedback.

Follow-Up ESL Activities:

As an extension to this body parts ESL game, you could try reviewing the vocabulary with the Daily Diary ESL Writing Activity or the Jeopardy ESL Board Game.