5 Fun Activities To Teach Comparative And Superlative Adjectives

If you’re teaching English comparative and superlative adjectives and are looking for some fun and exciting games, you’re in the right place. Comparative adjectives are used to compare 2 things and superlative adjectives are used to compare 3 or more things. Once students have learned comparative and superlative adjectives, they can compare two or more things and greatly expand their vocabulary. In this post, we list our top five game ideas to teach comparative and superlative adjectives.

Related: Comparative And Superlative Questions / List Of Comparative And Superlative Adjectives

5 Fun Games To Teach Comparative and Superlative Adjectives

1: Classroom Olympics

Top of our list of games to teach comparative and superlative adjectives is ‘Classroom Olympics’. In this activity, students will compete against each other in some fun classroom games and then make comparative and superlative sentences. The classroom Olympic activities you play will depend on whether you are practicing comparatives or superlatives, and the adjective you choose. Below are some examples of how you can play this game:

Comparative Adjective: Faster

Write 10-20 words on the board from the lesson you are currently teaching. Then invite two students to come to the front of the class and give each student a board eraser. Ask the two students to stand with their backs to the board and tell them that when you call out one of the words, they should turn around and try to erase the word quickly.

The first student to erase the word is the winner. Then, ask the rest of the class ‘Who is faster?’, and all students should answer using a comparative sentence (e.g. ‘Sarah is faster than James.’)

Superlative Adjective: Fastest

The above game can also be played to practice superlatives by repeating the above game with the rest of the students until you find the student who is the fastest in the whole class. Classroom Olympics can be used with many different adjectives and you can come up with many fun games to practice comparatives and superlatives. If you’re stuck for ideas, here are some:

Higher / Highest: Who can jump the highest.

Low / Lowest: Limbo

Strong / Strongest: Arm wrestle

Lucky / Luckiest: Rock, scissor, paper/roll a dice.

Louder / Loudest: Who can shout the loudest.

2: Comparative And Superlative Quizzes

Another great way to teach comparatives and superlatives is with a fun quiz. You can easily make your own questions, but if you’re stuck for time, here are three ready-made quizzes for you. Students must use their general knowledge to answer the questions.

To play, simply play the video in class. Then pause the video when you see the pause sign to give students time to answer. Then students can write down their answers using comparative and superlative sentences. To practice speaking, ask students to tell you their answers one by one after each question. These quizzes can be played in pairs or in small teams. For more ready-to-use English quizzes, check out all our Easy English quizzes.

3: Comparatives Chain Game

This simple game to practice comparatives is a great warm-up activity to introduce or review comparative adjectives. All you need for this game is a timer. To begin, brainstorm some comparative adjectives and write them on the board. Then choose a topic that has many nouns, such as ‘animals’. Then write a comparative sentence on the board comparing two animals. For example, ‘Elephants are bigger than cats.’.

Now the game can begin. The aim of the game is to make as many ‘comparative chains’ as possible. To make a chain, students must make a comparative sentence starting with the last noun of the previous sentence.

So, for example, if the first sentence is ‘Elephants are bigger than cats.’, then the next sentence must start with ‘Cats‘ (e.g. ‘Cat’s are smarter than pigs.’), and the sentence must start with ‘Pigs‘ (e.g. ‘Pigs are fatter than dogs.’), and so on. Give the first team 1 or 2 minutes to make as many comparative chains as possible, and then change the topic (e.g. food) for the next team.

4: My Family

This activity is a great way to review family vocabulary while teaching comparatives and superlatives. This game is especially effective when teaching comparatives and superlatives to kids. The best way to play this activity is to ask each student to bring in some pictures of their family members. But, if this is not possible, students can draw their families instead.

To begin, elicit some adjectives from your students that can describe people. For example, old, young, tall, short, funny, etc. Then ask your students to think about their family members and to think about who is the tallest, oldest, youngest, funniest, etc. Students will then work in pairs or small groups and will try to guess the names of their partners’ family members based on their friend’s descriptions of them.

To begin, one student will show the pictures (or drawings) of their family members to the other students in their group. Then, the student will make a superlative sentence describing one of their family members. For example, ‘John is the shortest person in my family.’. The other students must then look at the pictures and guess which picture (or drawing) is of John. Repeat until the students have guessed all the family members, and then it’s another student’s turn.

5: Comparative And Superlative Flashcard Games

Last on our list of fun classroom games to teach comparative and superlative adjectives is a flashcard game. Flashcards are a wonderful way to present vocabulary to students and can be used in a variety of different ways.

A great way to use flashcards when teaching comparatives/superlatives is to play the sentences game. To play, first, prepare some noun flashcards. These can be on any topic, for example, food, animals, school subjects, countries, etc. You can download and print flashcards on many different topics for FREE from our Flashcards Page.

Then, divide the class into two teams and ask one student from each team to come to the front. After the count of 3, show the two students a flashcard and then they must make up a comparative sentence and write it on the board as quickly as possible. For example, if the flashcard is a picture of an elephant, the students could right ‘An elephant is bigger than a fly.’ / ‘An Elephant is heavier than the teacher.’, etc.

The first student to write a correct sentence is the winner and gets to keep that flashcard for his/her team. At the end, the team with the most flashcards is the winner.

Thanks for reading. I hope you found some good game ideas to teach comparatives and superlative adjectives. Before you go, don’t forget to check out our FREE ESL lesson materials, including flashcards, board games, lesson plans, and PowerPoint Games.