Set aside a school day to do as many activities as you can opposite of the way they are usually done. Tell the students they can come dressed in an opposite manner, such as an inside-out shirt, a backwards shirt and so on. When it’s time to start class, tell the students to stand up (meaning sit down), to be noisy (meaning to be quiet), to daydream (meaning pay attention). If they come to the blackboard, they should carefully walk backwards. To turn on the lights, tell them to turn off the lights. Instead of lunch, break for breakfast and serve breakfast foods.
Create a list of words and their opposites. Make and copy bingo boards for your class with five squares across and five squares down. Label the middle square “FREE.” Make each card unique, writing one of the “opposites” from your list in each open square. Read a word from your list. Your students should look on their board to find the opposite of the word you said. They should put a marker in the square with the correct opposite word. The first child to get a row across, down or diagonally wins. If you play this game with early first-graders, consider using pictures instead of words.
Divide the class into two teams. Read a word and ask the first player on one team to say a word that is its opposite. Award a point if she answers correctly. Use another word for the first player on the second team. Continue to play, alternating words between the teams.
Divide the class into groups of two students. Make enough sets of memory cards for each group to have 10 opposite pairs. If you want to play this game more often, make each set of cards unique. You can write a word on one card and its opposite on another, or use pictures for the opposite pairs. Mix up the cards and place them face down on the table in four rows of five cards each. Students take turns turning over two cards trying to find a matched opposite pair. When a student finds a pair, he leaves those cards face up and receives a point.
Make pairs of cards with a word on one card and its opposite on the other. Mix the cards and tape one card on each student. The students should search for the child with the opposite card. When two students think they are a pair, they should sit down in a circle and wait until the others have paired up. Have the students take turns standing up as an opposite pair and saying their opposite words.