GAMES OF KENYA
Jackstones

Place: a flat smooth surface
Number of players: three or more
Supplies: ten to fifteen palm nuts, peach or plum pits, or almonds for each player
Players sit in a circle on the ground and place all their palm nuts or pits in a pile at the center.
Each player keeps one nut to toss into the air. He or she tosses the nut in the air. Before it comes down, the player scoops up as many nuts as he or she can from the pile, catching the falling nut with the same hand. 

A player who misses the falling nut must put the nuts he or she just took back in the pile. Play continues around the circle until all nuts are gone.
The player with the most nuts at the end of the game is the winner. 

GAMES OF CHINA
Rubber Band Jumping

Number of Players: 3 or more

Supplies: some rubber bands

Action: Loop the rubber bands together tightly until you have a larger one. Two persons stand opposite each other and extend the rubber band.

One player jumps and stands on one side of the rubber band, carrying the two sides together. Then the player jumps again and makes the two sides separate. Then the player jumps again into the middle of the rubber-band and after that jumps outside it.

If the player jumping finishs these steps without any mistakes, go on to the next level.

As the game continues, the level of jumping gets higher and higher. There are four jumping levels: ankle high, knee high, waist high, and under the shoulder.

GAMES OF FRANCE
La Petanque

Number of Players: 6 or more

Place: Gymnasium or outdoors

Action:  Consists of a set of 6 or 12 steel little balls that players are supposed to throw as close as they can to the "piggy." The "piggy" is a very small wooden ball and is the target of the game.  First, the beginning team tosses the piggy a certain distance, but not too far or too close.  Each team takes turns tossing a ball towards the piggy until the balls are all gone.  The team that gets the closest ball to the piggy wins.  Then, count one point for each ball of the winning team that is closer to the piggy than the other team's balls.

GAMES OF EGYPT
Seega

Number of Players: Two

Supplies: flat surface and three coins, stones, or other markers for each player

Action: Seega is an ancient game that has been player for thousands of years. Originally called, Senet, boards for playing this game were found in the tombs of King Tut.

To play the game, you must first draw the game board. For beginners, the board should consist of a rectangle divided into nine squares. More advanced players may use 25, 49, or 81 squares and the appropriate number of markers to fill a complete row. Each child places his or her markers in one of the rows on the end of the board, leaving the middle row empty. Each player takes a turn moving his or her markers one or two squares in any direction, but may not cross over another marker. The winner is the first player to get his or her markers in a straight line on the game board--straight down, across, or diagonally, but not in the original line.

GAMES OF BRAZIL
Gato Doente (Sick Cat)

Number of Players: At least 4 players are needed for this Brazilian game of tag.

Action: One player must be the cat, or gato. When the game starts the gato chases the other players. When a player is tagged by the gato he or she also becomes a "sick cat" and must hold the part that has been tagged with one hand. The "sick cats" must chase all the others until only one healthy cat remains. This last healthy cat is the winner.

International Games

Jennifer’s Language Page

Children’s Folk Games

AlphaDictionary Word Games

 Xie xie
辛西娅

Treat students as individuals whose identities are complex and unique.

For example, you can ask open-ended questions to solicit students' reports of their experiences or observations without calling on a student to speak for his or her race/gender/culture. Also, learning to pronounce all of the names correctly shows respect for varied backgrounds.

Encourage full participation while being aware of differences which may influence students' responses.

For example, you can make eye contact with everyone, increase your wait time to include less assertive and/or more reflective students, ask questions that draw out quieter participants or challenge dominant students in small groups, or talk with students outside of class to provide encouragement.

Vary your teaching methods to take advantage of different learning styles and to expand the repertoire of strategies tried by each student.

For example, you can foster peer relationships with in-class collaboration, include concrete examples whenever possible, use visual or dramatic presentations, or value personal knowledge and experience when students share it.

Promote a respectful classroom climate with egalitarian norms and acceptance of differences.

For example, you can encourage student projects involving diverse perspectives, discuss guidelines or "ground rules" for good participation, and monitor language use for implicit assumptions, exclusions, or overgeneralizations.

Be aware of possible student anxiety about their performance in a competitive environment such as Carnegie Mellon's but try not to "overprotect."

All students - including those whose personal or cultural histories may include being a target of stereotypes and discrimination - need clear standards and evaluation criteria, straightforward comments on their work delivered with tact and empathy, and early feedback so that they can change their learning strategies or get help if needed.

Avoiding Common Problems

Avoid highly idiomatic English.

Idioms are especially confusing for non-native speakers of English or any student who may have been raised in another country or another region of the U.S. While the expressions may be colorful, many students may miss an important concept if the phrase in unfamiliar (e.g. "once in a blue moon," "between a rock and a hard place").

Provide some linguistic redundancy.

Many students, particularly non-native speakers of English, benefit from both seeing and hearing language (e.g. through the use of the blackboard or overhead projector) and from hearing key ideas stated in different ways.

Use diverse examples rather than ones which assume a particular background or experience.

Examples that come easily are often those which come from our own experiences. Make sure you aren't consistently assuming all your students share that experience. For example, notice when many of your examples are based on cultural or regional knowledge, hobbies favored predominantly by one gender, or political or historical knowledge unfamiliar to those from other countries.

Don't assume that students who don't talk don't know the material.

Being quiet in the classroom and not "showing off" are considered respectful in many Asian cultures. For some women and people of color, silence in the classroom may have been learned in response to negative experiences with participation (e.g. being interrupted by others, not getting credit for their ideas, having others talk to them in a condescending or dismissive way).

Watch the type of humor that occurs in your classes to be sure it denigrates no one.

A surprisingly large number of jokes involve putting down people who are different in some way and who may already feel marginal because of those differences. From Freeland, R. (1998). Collected Wisdom: Strategies & Resources Pittsburgh, PA: Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence, Carnegie Mellon.

By Robert John Meehan

 My pencil is on the floor

Just what am I to do

I'll not get it with my feet

As the other children do

The test has already started

I'm in danger of falling behind

If only a fellow student

Would return it in ample time

My palms are now sweating

My frustration's beginning to show

No talking is permitted

Thus my pencil lies below

If my eyes were to wander

For a helping hand to find

Would my teacher be believing

Or would questions of cheating be defined

As I squirm anxiously in my seat

There's sweat forming on my brow

I wantingly glance beneath me

Believing I'll  retrieve it yet somehow

A commotion I could make

But others I would distract

Or an illness I could fake

With a slim chance the test retake

I glance up at the clock

With feelings of dismal shock

Wishing in my predicament

My teacher soon takes stock

I hesitatingly raise my hand

As a tear trickles down my cheek

Hoping and praying all along

That my teacher's eyes and mine do meet

But much to my dismay

She's still  looking another way

With hopes of finishing diminishing

I'll need find yet another way

I swallow a gulp of air

In hopes of clearing my throat

In need of my teacher's attention

To questions with answers yet unwrote

In fear of promoting a commotion

I begrudgedly bury my head

Any hopes of a successful solution

Are lost in my feelings of dread

With a tap on my shoulder from behind me

And a tug on my chair's brake release

My teacher's whispering voice reminds me

My wheelchair's brake to release 

With a smile and a nod to assure me

To put my worst expectations to rest

My teacher returns me my pencil

And on I continue my test