Writing Games

During some of the club meetings we've played some fun games that promote creativity with words/writing. Here are some of the games and descriptions.

Apples to Apples Board Game :

The concept of Apples to Apples is pretty easy: match the adjective card on the table with a noun or verb card from your hand.

But that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Watch hilarity ensue as players match terms like "Fluffy" to "Mildew" or "Sticky" to "Horror film." While it may be limited by the hand of cards you’re dealt (what if you don’t have a perfect match for "Harry Truman"?), there is some strategy to the game. Each round of card matching is judged by a different player at the table. So you can use it to your advantage to play a card that you know is a shoo-in for certain judges.

Use the red cards in your hand to make hilarious matches to the green card on the table. When someone wins a round, they place that Green Apple card in front of them on the table. This, effectively, is the point tracking system and eliminates the need for pen and paper. Since the person who has gathered the most Green Apples is the winner at the end of the game, it behooves players to lobby for their cards. Again, hilarity ensues.

The fact that everyone is judge at some point makes this game all-inclusive. The fast pace and lack of accessories make it portable. The combinations thrown together in Mad Lib style make it addictive. This Party Box version comes with more than 700 Red Apples and 252 Green Apples to keep game play interesting for quite a while. But if you’re playing with a more adventurous crowd, check out these variations on Wikipedia.

The Party Box edisiton of Apples to Apples includes 756 Red Apple cards, 252 Green Apple cards, and two deluxe card trays.



Balderdash :

Balderdash™, the classic bluffing game, has gone beyond hilarious. With real but outrageous content that now includes a new category, Laughable Laws. The categories contain real but unbelievable content about People, Words, Initials, Movies and Laws. Players make up phony answers to these categories, read them off along with the correct answer, and then vote on which answer is real. Score points for guessing correctly and for bluffing the other players. So grab the bull by the horns and play Balderdash, the game that's hilarious beyond belief. ®2004 Gameworks Creations Inc

You just ran into a zugzwang!

Was it...

1. an old school chum.

2. A small swivel cannon fired from the back of a camel.

3. A bad move in a game of chess.

4. A Tasmanian tree toad.

It's defintely one of these--but which one? That's what you have to discover in Balderdash, the game of phony defintions and masterful bluffing, with hundreds of the zaniest, most unbelievable words in the English language.


Create a Story:

Create-A-Story is the first board game to make story writing kid's play. Travel through time, walk on the moon, befriend a talking frog. Your story can take many twists and turns depending on the cards you draw and how you piece it together. The fun comes in watching creative sparks fly!

This high-adventure game is designed to help students:

Structure a story
Develop characters and plots
Use dialogue
Set up conflict and resolution
Write with confidence and imagination
Experience the joy of writing
The rewards are great

Everyone learns (and laughs!) just by playing.
Offers multiple levels of play.
Develops lifelong creative writing and thinking skills.
Suitable for a wide range of students including those with learning differences or a gift for writing.
Ideal for individual or group play, for ages 5-99.
Success is built into the game so everyone is a "winner."

Describing Self in Third Person

Three weeks ago we did an exercise in which we wrote descriptions of ourselves in third person...then we gathered them up and read them aloud, trying to guess who wrote which ones. Here's what was written:

Her eyes looked as though they would bore holes through the book she was reading. Her large hands flipped the pages eagerly--nails bitten to the quick, all but four. As she rocked back and forth in the chair, spiral locks kept flipping in her eyes. With one quick puff, she blew them away.

"Stop, stop!" she squealed through her laughter. Everyone was laughing with her because they knew she didn't really mind. She had an abundant sense of humor, and was often caught teasing everyone else. She was almost shy...until you got to know her. She only made jokes about those she knew wouldn't take offense.

She had brown hair, and I guess you could say brown eyes. And she didn't say very much, but I could tell she was thinking of something to write down. Write, erase, write, erase, over and over again. I wonder when she will think of something good to write about?

As he put his cheek to the gun stock, he could feel the oil in the wood. As his hand wrapped around the grip, he stuck his finger through the trigger guard. He lined up the sight and squeezed the trigger to send the bullet at the target.

As the girl walked through the rain on her way to feed the goats, her mind, as usual, was racing a thousand miles and hour. Her thoughts kept jumping from subject to subject, from nature-still-lifes, to Elven watchers, to spring & baby animals, to things so random...a pink-polka-dot-panda...somehow finding a connection between them that made sense to her strange mind. And as she walked, getting more and more soaked, she realized that she had walked past the pen.

She was singing off tune as she came downstairs. It was her turn to do the dishes. She pulled her long hair up into a sloppy bun and started to put the dishes away. The room was too quiet, apparently, because she turned the radio up louder as she attempted to put the last cup on a shelf that was too high for her to reach. She ignored the stool sitting right next to her and half climbed on top of the counter with one knee and finished her daily chore.

He sat in front of a computer. he, once again, was song shopping on I-Tunes. "Darn you search engine! You have failed me again." He said to the computer. "Great. Now I'm talking to computers," he said to himself. "Great. Now I'm talking to myself."

Short brown hair and eyes and dislikes "The Early Show", likes and is good at basketball and football. Likes Thursdays better than Wednesdays at the stables.

She typed at her computer, trying to remember if she sent out all the e-mails needed to her blog members. Pulling her blonde hair into a pony-tail, she heard her sons arguing about Lego's. AGAIN! Her blue eyes flashed. "I'm throwing those things away if you cannot share!" She sighed. "BOYS!"

He has brown eyes and brown hair. He is going to play football and he has a soccer practice on Saturday. He isn't the tallest. He has a few friends...he has some of his sisters' friends visiting. They're both girls, and he has been staying up pretty late.

Sitting quietly on the floral print couch, he sighed. Mumbling obscenities under his breath, the boy on the floral print couch got up and placed the piece of music on the stand. On the first try, he sounded scratchy, out of turn, and confused. However, after a fairly long period of practice, he was able to play it well, with most of it in turn and smooth.

Her long brown hair went everywhere at once while she threw her side wholeheartedly into the target. She loved to try her best at Tae Kwon Doe...putting her best into her kicks, punches, and forms. Her green belt flapped around as she walked slowly to the front of the room. She was waiting for her position results. She hoped for blue stripes, which would take her farther in rank. She could only hope for the best.

She has brown...

He sat in the chair, his blue eyes focused on the explosions on the TV.

His mom called out to him, "Come empty the dishwasher!"

He mumbled something that sounded like 'Later.'

"NOW!" his mom cried.

He sighed and turned off the TV. He put on his sulking face and walked to unload the dishwasher.