Grade:

Grades 3-5, Middle

Setup:

Two teams sit in one circle, alternate team A and B

Objective:

Each student will get three slips of paper on which they will each write three different nouns (person, place, or thing). Then, students will fold each slip in half and put it in a bowl with all the other words. Students sit in a circle and form two teams (easiest if it’s every other person is on team A and the rest are on team B). The game has three rounds.

• In round one, a student can talk to their team to get them to guess the word they have picked from the bowl — they can say anything except the word (and no rhymes, either!). They try to get their team to guess as many words as possible in one minute. Then the bowl gets passed to the person next to them who gets one minute to have their team guess as many words as possible. The bowl goes around the circle, alternating teams, until all the words have been guessed. Each team gets a point for each word their team guessed. Once all the words have been said, ALL of the slips go BACK in the bowl for round two.
• In round two, a student can only act  (like charades) to get their team to guess the word they have picked. (Since these words have already been guessed, it should theoretically make it easier to guess for this round!) They get one minute to have their team guess as many words as possible. The bowl goes around the circle until all of the words have been guessed.  Each team gets a point for each word their team guesses. Once all the words have been said, ALL of the slips go BACK in the bowl for round three!
• In round three, a student can only say ONE WORD (and one word only) to get their team to guess the word they have picked. (Since every word has now been guessed twice, it should theoretically help with the guessing!) They get one minute to have their team guess as many words as possible. Each team gets a point for each word their team guesses.  Once all the words have been guessed, the game is over and you count up the points to find out which team won!

Note: Depending on the size of the group, you can adjust the number of paper slips each student gets — if you have a small group, you can increase the slips to five.