Vocabulary Fun Game

Today I started a new vocabulary game with my kids. It's actually based a game that I have played with adults before called Family Fun Game (lame name, great game). An Outdoor Educator friend of mine taught it to me a little while back. Here's the original game:

You need a group of at least four. Everyone writes two or three clues on pieces of paper, folds them and puts them in a hat. The clues could be pop-culture related, just words, names, whatever (think the kind things that would be answers in Pictionary or Trivial Persuit). Then divide into teams of at least two.

The first team chooses a player that gets a minute to get their team to guess as many clues as they can (they can say anything except any part of the word or phrase itself). They keep the clues that they guess (these are points). Then the hat is passed to the next team. Repeat until all clues are gone and tabulate the points.

Then you play another round exactly the same way, except the person can say only one word as a clue (remember though that we've already been through the clues once, so everyone has heard them before). Then you play a third round only now you can't say anything but can only do one gesture. You are allowed to pass by putting the clue back, and this is important if your team doesn't get it in the second or third rounds.

Anyway, that's the basics. If I was unclear, feel free to email me.

Now, for my class I didn't play exactly this. Instead we played Vocabulary Fun Game, which was the same except you skip the first part where everyone creates the clues. Instead you just make the clues yourself, and each one is a vocabulary word. I did this today to review the week's words and it went fantastically! The only downside was that my next door neighbor popped in to complain about all the noise (and she's a Power Teacher too!). Sorry about that! :-) The whole game took about 20-25 minutes, and that was with all the explanation and everything. It can be shortened by only doing one or two rounds. Try it and let me know how it goes!

I was also going to post about my first stab at the Crazy Professor today, but this has gone long so I'm going to skip that for now.