Directions:

We sometimes cover topics that students have previously seen, such as food or clothes, and we need to review what they know before introducing more advanced words.

I tell the class the topic we're going to cover, and I give them an example of a word we know about it. I write that word, as well as the topic, on the board and then I ask them to stand up.

They have to come up with another word for that topic (I usually ask for the most difficult one they know, to avoid words like pizza or bacon if we're doing food).

If the word is correct, I write it on the board and that student can sit down. We keep going until they're all seated and the board is full of words.

Then, I tell them to stand up again. I let them know that I'm going to describe a word that is on the board, and that when I call their name they have to guess which one it is.

I pick one word from the board at random and I explain what it is in Spanish (es un tipo de comida muy famoso en China. Es pequeño y blanco). Then I ask a student to guess which word it is. If the answer is correct, they can sit down. Otherwise I ask the same question to someone else.

I keep going until everybody is seated again.

Follow-up activities:

Once we have the board full of words, we could try to find ways to organize them into categories. Students could build their words maps grouping the words. If it's food, we could do fruits, meats, vegetables, others... If it's clothes, maybe winter clothes, summer, accessories...

In the following lessons we could use warm-up activities such as this one to reinforce that vocabulary.