End of the year

Here we are, counting down the days until summer vacation! As the kids get anstier, and my patience wanes, I wind down my theme work and look to activities which review learnt vocabulary. Often this includes games of all kinds. One I particularly like is 'Reloj', a card game from Spain. This works best in smaller classes or groups.
To play:
You will need several decks of cards (I use 5 decks for a class of 12)- remove the queens and the jokers.

To play:
-all cards are dealt evenly to players. Cards are kept face down.
-going clockwise, first player turns over top card, places it in center of table and says ‘reloj’. next player turns over his/her card and says ‘uno’. next player does the same, saying ‘dos’- play continues in this manner counting up to ‘rey’ (12). when players get to ‘rey’, counting starts again at ‘reloj’.
-as cards are played into the middle of the table, should a player turn over a card which holds the same value as the number he/she calls out, player must take all of the cards in the center. (So if player says 'dos' and turns over a 2, player takes all of the cards in the middle) No cards are taken when ‘reloj’ is said since it does not represent a number.
-play continues until one player goes out.

cards are counted in this order:
reloj
uno
dos
tres
cuatro
cinco
seis
siete
ocho
nueve
sota (10)
caballo (jack)
rey (king)

Disfrutalo!