Just One Vocabulary game
Adapted from Just One by Ludovic Roudy & Bruno Sautter
Teams of 3-7 players will work together to guess vocabulary terms. The team wins points for correct guesses and loses potential points for incorrect guesses. The team with the most points wins.
Materials
- Vocabulary list (at least 13 words, single words only)
[Teacher note: The class may create the vocabulary list as a group]
- Index cards (one per vocabulary word)
- Portable whiteboards (one per player)
- Whiteboard markers (one per player)
- Whiteboard erasers (at least one per group)
Setup
- Copy the vocabulary list to index cards. Each index card should only have one word on it.
- Shuffle the index cards and place face down in a stack in the middle of the table.
- Each player gets a portable whiteboard and marker.
Game play
- One player will be the guesser and other players will be the writers for the round.
- Without looking at the word, the guesser shows the next vocabulary card to writers.
- In secret, writers write one word on their whiteboards without communicating with other writers or the guesser. The goal is to write a unique word that will help the guesser identify the vocabulary word.
- Single words only. No pictures, hyphenated words, formulas, etc.
- Allowed: numbers, acronyms, onomatopoeia
- Cannot write vocabulary word in different form (foreign language, slang, homonym)
- Words from same family are considered duplicates, examples: Egypt and Egyptian, prince and princess
- Without showing the guesser, writers remove duplicated words.
[Example: The words written were "apple", "apple", and "banana". Both apples will be removed.]
- Writers show unique words to the guesser.
[The guesser would only see "banana" from the previous example.]
- The guesser has two options:
- Make a guess
- If the guess is correct, the team keeps the vocabulary card as a point.
- If the guess is incorrect, the team discards the vocabulary card and discards the next vocabulary card from the stack without looking at it.
- Pass - The team discards the vocabulary card.
- Erase whiteboards and the next player will be guesser for the next round.
- Repeat game play until the vocabulary stack is empty.
[Special note for the last card: If the guess is incorrect for the last vocabulary word, the team must also discard a previously won point.]