Age: 5 to adult
Players: Whole Group
Time: 5 minutes
Skills: Concentration

A sneaky adaptation of a very well-known drama game for playing online

Online Version

Teach four simple actions: stop, go, face and clap. ‘Go’ means pretend to walk, ‘Stop’ means stop as still as a statue, ‘Face’ means make a funny face and ‘Clap’ means clap your hands.

The teacher starts simply, using these instructions one at a time. When the students are confident with the instructions, the teacher starts to use the instructions in combination, for example, ‘stop, face, clap, clap’. Finally, just when the students think they have ‘got it’, tell them that we have entered an alternate universe and the instructions now mean the opposite of what they usually mean. So ‘Go’ means ‘Stop’, ‘Face’ means ‘Clap’ and so on.

Original Version (Stop, Go, Jump, Clap)

Students walk around the room. The teacher asks them to do four simple actions: stop, go, jump and clap. The teacher starts simply, using these instructions one at a time. When the students are confident with the instructions, the teacher starts to use the instructions in combination, for example, ‘stop, jump, clap, clap’. Finally, just when the students think they have ‘got it’, tell them that the instructions now mean the opposite of what they really mean. So ‘Go’ means ‘Stop’, ‘Jump’ means ‘Clap’ and so on. This usually causes much hilarity and head-scratching.