Houses, Rooms and Furniture ESL Activities, Games and Worksheets
This engaging house and rooms game helps students practice making associations between particular activities and different rooms or parts of a house. First, students complete a sentence on a card with an activity that is associated with the room or part of the house shown, e.g. 'I'm making dinner in the kitchen.' Students then play a game where they mime and guess the sentences to find out which room or part of the house the other students are in, and what they are doing there. Students go around asking a classmate a 'Where are you?' question. Their classmate then mimes the sentence on their card. The first student then asks yes/no questions to help them guess the activity and part of the house, e.g. 'Are you eating breakfast?' 'Are you in the dining room?' When the student receives a nod for yes to both questions, they write their partner's name, what they are doing, and where they are in the relevant columns on their worksheet. The first student to complete their worksheet with ten different rooms or parts of the house and related activities is the winner.
In this furniture and household items pelmanism game, students match picture cards to word cards and ask and answer Is there...? / Are there...? questions using the vocabulary. To begin, students match furniture and household item picture and word cards together. Next, students play a pelmanism game where they take it in turns to turn over two cards. If the picture and word cards match, the student asks another student an Is there or Are there...? question, linking the piece of furniture or household item to an appropriate room, e.g. 'Is there a wardrobe in your bedroom?' The other student responds Yes, there is or No, there isn't. If the question is correct, the student keeps the two cards and has another turn. If the question is incorrect or the cards don't match, the student turns them back over, keeping them in the same place. The game continues until all the cards have been matched. The student with the most pairs of cards at the end of the game wins.
Here is a fun furniture information gap activity to help students practice vocabulary related to furniture and things found in the home. In the activity, each student bought a household item or piece of furniture from a market that has a problem. To start, students take on the role of the person on their card and write their own information in the table. Students then go around their group, asking each group member the intended location of the item they bought and the problem, writing their answers in the table. When the students have finished, they unscramble words related to furniture and things found in the home. Lastly, students refer to the information in the table and write the item that each person bought in the last column. Afterwards, review the correct answers with the class.
In this rooms and furniture game, students brainstorm furniture and decor vocabulary for different parts of a house. Start the game by calling out a random part of the house from the caller's sheet, e.g. bedroom. Each pair then writes that part of the house in the first column. Pairs then have one minute to brainstorm and write down all the furniture and decor words they can think of that go with that part of the house, e.g. bed, wardrobe, etc. When the time limit has been reached, pairs compare their answers. Teams cross off any words from their list that the competing team has on theirs and any words that both teams agree are not appropriate. Teams score one point for each correctly spelt remaining word on their list that the opposing team does not have. The pair with the most points at the end of the game wins.
In this house vocabulary activity, students complete instructions for staying in someone's house and then race to exchange information for different parts of the house with a partner. In two groups, students start by unscrambling words related to parts of a house and furniture. Students then use the words to complete instructions for different parts of a house. Next, students pair up with someone from the other group. Explain that the students are going to be staying in a friend's home while they are away and that they have been left instructions for different parts of the house. Each student has the instructions for the parts of the house listed on their partner's worksheet and their task is to race to complete the instructions and match them to the different parts of the house. Students then take turns asking their partner for instructions for the parts of the house on their worksheet and write their partner's responses in the table in sentence form. The first pair to correctly complete the instructions for all the places wins.
