Riddles - Who Are We Talking About?

Lots of us have played this as a party game, but it's an ideal forty-five minute filler and generates lots of discussion and laughter.

You show the children how to describe someone using metaphors, all filling in a sheet together and using someone they all know, like a member of staff. Stress politeness and kindness - if they're writing about fellow pupils or about adults in the school, their answers should be positive enough to read out to read out in front of that person. Nothing rude!

Then they can choose who they want: a member of the school community, a person on TV or even a fictional character, as in the example of Matilda above. When the sheets are completed, the students take turns to read out their clues, stating whether their person is male or female and where you'd see them. Then the other children can guess.

Incidentally, a good ten-minute filler if an activity doesn't quite fill an hour is an easy word search. I run these competitively with a small chocolate bar as a prize, and they always go down well.