First you need to know how to play the original Gun, Heart, Bomb.

If you know how to play it already… just scroll down past the next paragraph. If you don’t know how to play it; I will quickly explain how to now.

You will need to draw a big grid on the blackboard. On the top of the grid you will need to write the letters A – J. Have the A in the first box on the far left. Have the letter B in the box to the right of the A. Then the C, and so on.

You will need to write the numbers 1 – 10 in the far left boxes. Have the number one in the top box. Write the number 2 in the box below. The number 3 under the 2 and so on.

Now you should have a large grid on the blackboard. Your ESL students should easily be able to pick a box: A – 6, F – 2, 7 – G, etc.

During your preparation time you should decide which ESL games you will play. If you decide to play this game… then you will need to draw this same grid on a piece of paper.

On your grid you will have to fill in all of the boxes. These are the items that you can put into each box.

Gun, Heart, Bomb – Original Version Items:

A gun means that you can shoot an opposing team members hit point.

A heart means that you can give one extra hit point to one of your teammates.

A bomb will explode and blow up whoever picked that box and minus one of their hit points.

Gun, Heart, Bomb – Version 2.0 Items:

The gun, the heart and the bomb are items that your students can find in this version of the game.

Also included in this game are:

A tank – A tank can shoot one person on the other team 3 times.

A helicopter – A helicopter can shoot three other people one time.

A flame thrower – A flame thrower can shoot two people two times.

And of course, use your creativity to make up even new items.

When you start the game you will need to divide the class into equal teams. Give every student an equal amount of hit points.

And because this is an ESL game to be played during your English class… you will need to practice English before and during the game.

What I usually do is have all of the students stand up. I will ask them a question. After they answer the question correctly they can sit down. When all of the students are sitting down ~ I will let one person from each team have a turn.

If it is Jimmy’s turn and he picks box 8 – C… the ESL Teacher will have to look at his answer sheet which he/she wrote during his/her preparation time to see what is in that box.

Keep playing the game until one team destroys all of the other team’s hit points.