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Similar to the game "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" This activity has a distinctly Christmas theme. Can be done in groups or individually, depending upon level and student preference.
Students are given a MISSING poster and a "police report" as well as their own "clue" paper in order to keep track of the countries visited and clues given.
The first clue is given on the "police report," leading them to find the first country by looking for key words in the short paragraphs about Christmas traditions for that country. Once Ss find the first country, they can read the clue pasted on the back of the country description. Ss read the next clue and go from there. When Ss think that they know the answer, they tell the JTE or ALT where Santa's sleigh is.

Warm up: your choice

Intro: introduce vocab needed for activity (if any)
form groups
pass out posters, etc.
　　　　
Go over instructions and read the first clue together. Then, set Ss loose to solve the mystery. Hints may be necessary and some monitoring is necessary as well to keeps some Ss on task.

I gave out Christmas stickers when the Ss found the sleigh, but tis not necessary.

This isn't really so much a plan, but something that seems to be working well, and is enjoyable for students and teachers alike. Essentially students pick new names for themselves and make name cards, from that point on they'll be referred to as that in class. Teachers may also pick names (I currently teach with Scarlett-sensei and Xavior-sensei). It might also be fun to pick out a new Japanese name for yourself (I'm 'Akira').

I grabbed a list of the top 100 baby names from last year in the US and 'translated' them into katakana. I had a couple Japanese teachers go over it, but they may have missed a few... so some of the names might not be 100% accurate. In any case I suggest reading the list out loud so the students can hear the names.

I also made tried to make it clear that this was optional, and I knew lots of people with Japanese names in the US. If they didn't want a new name that was okay. In addition they were free to pick names not on the list. I was expecting to get a few kids to want to be named "Spiderman" or "Jack Bauer", but only one student picked an odd name: "Pork" (he was clear he wanted it to mean 'pig-meat').

As a fun side-activity I've begun researching the meanings of the names they've chosen. Xavior-sensei (for the record, he chose that spelling) was disappointed to find out that his name actually means "New House". I think he was expecting something more sinister.

Practice the example dialogue with students and review any difficult vocabulary. Make sure they know they are talking about events in the past and that they have to convert the present verb form into the past. Then have students get up and walk around the room forming questions from the Bingo squares to make a conversation with each other. After completing a conversation with another pupil, students sign each others' bingo squares. Students continue until they make a line of signatures to get however many Bingos you want them to get, depending on how long you want the activity to last.