 6. Great Blackboard Games for Your Online Lesson. Online teaching has experienced a huge boom in recent months and many teachers have to teach online. The six ideas below will help you with engaging your students and grabbing their attention through the computer screen. These activities can be used as icebreakers and transitions between other tasks to cheer the learners up. 1. Three of a kind. For this activity, you need to prepare a shared Google document with several groups of three words depending on your student's English level. Have them figure out what those words have in common. You can use cards from the tri-bond for kids game with younger students and more advanced vocabulary for teens and adults. For example French fries, cabbage, soup, food. 2. Word Picture Puzzles. Prepare different word picture puzzles in advance. You can use simple drawing apps, Google Docs, or an online board for this task. Use words, symbols, letters, and their positions to represent a word or a phrase. You can also use ready-made brain teasers. For example ban, Anna, banana split. 3. Initial Puzzles. Use letters and numbers to represent a phrase for students to figure out. For example 12 M, in a Y, 12 months in a year. 4. Rebus Puzzles. Use drawings and letters to represent a word or phrase. You can make them yourself to customize the task to the needs of your classroom or simply Google for ready-made sheets. 5. Trivia. Pose questions for students to answer. Use questions related from various topics, music, movies, science, etc. Encourage students to show off their knowledge in English. You can also allow them to search for answers on the internet. 6. Hink Pinks. Give students a definition and ask them to come up with a two-word rhyming phrase. For example mail cow after a big meal, full bull. Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course.