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Scattergories

GRAMMAR: General Game     SUBMITTED BY: Elizabeth Patton / Lindsay Upton     BORROWED FROM / INSPIRED BY: Hasbro     DATE ADDED: Sep 15, 2008     EDITED BY: まだ

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15-30 min.
 
6 votes: 4.5-star
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Brief Outline: The objective of Scattergories is to score points by uniquely naming objects within a set of categories, given an initial letter, within a time limit.

 

Materials Needed:

 

Detailed Explanation:

  1. Go over the categories and have students take notes for what they do not understand (example: verb or something bigger than a book).
  2. Explain you will give them a letter and they must put one word down for each topic that begins with that letter. (example R: vegetable-radish animal-rabbit 4 letter word-ruts)
  3. Set a time limit and then give them a letter. Make sure it is a letter which they know a lot of works for S, R, T, B are good ones.
  4. After the time limit expires have each group share their answer and give points. If two or more groups have the same answer, it doesn't count. This should encourage more original answers.

 

Variations:

  • Have students play individually rather than in groups.

 

Teaching Suggestions:

  • Make sure students understand the rules, don't use their textbooks and know what each topic means. Valuable playing time will be wasted when students look at the categories and ask "Korewa NANI?". I encourage them to write the definitions below each topic.
  • Check out Wikipedia for more details of the rules.
  • You can also check out Scattergories online.

 

Cautions/Tips:

  • Students will cheat so make sure they aren't looking at the other groups or using textbooks!

 

Comments:

  • (Sept 30, 2011) Max said: Just did this with a fairly low level high school. Spent more time explaining than playing, but once the students got going they had a lot of surprisingly educational fun. Great activity if you dont mind taking a lot of time to do it.
  •  
    (Mar 1, 2011) Ryan said: I've tried my own version of this game several times and never had any real luck. The kids always choose the same words and cancel each other out. I'm going to try this version and see what it's like