• The children sit in a circle.
• Each child is given the name of a fruit.
• One person is chosen to stand in the centre of the circle and repeats the name of one of the fruits three times e.g. orange, orange, orange.
• The person around the outside of the circle who is the orange, must interrupt by shouting the word orange, before the other person has managed to say it three times.
• If they interrupt successfully the person in the middle chooses another fruit.
• If they are not quick enough they replace the person in the middle.

It is a really fun game and encourages the children to concentrate and tests their reactions. It can be used as a time filler or a warm up to a circle time session.

These variations were contributed by Sarah:

I played a similar game when I taught in Japan (I got it from a booklet so I can't thank whoever came up with the idea) but it was called apple3, the person stood in the middle and tried to "steal" a seat. It became adapted in several ways

• Try using the names of animals vs the sound they make
• Try using verbs (present tense three times vs past tense once)
• Topic words
• Different language
• Another language + the translation