When I play party games I always look for a way to tweak them for vocabulary instruction. Recently I updated the game card templates of one of my most popular vocabulary games, Fun with Synonyms: Guess That Word Vocabulary Game (a.k.a. Banned Words).
Instructions:
1.) Decide how many students should play in a group. (I suggest 4–8 students).
2.) Have students move to their assigned groups.
3.) Have each student create cards for 16-32 vocabulary words.
Students should refer to the directions on their game card template when filling in their words.
4.) Once all students have filled in their game card with their assigned words, have them cut out the individual cards to be combined into a single deck. One team member will collect all the cards, shuffle them thoroughly, then hand the stack to the team member going first. Someone within the group must be accountable for keeping time.
Rules:
In each group, students form two teams. Students sit in a circle, alternating players from team 1 and team 2. Students take turns as the contestant who attempts to prompt his or her teammates to guess as many vocabulary words as possible in one minute. However, each card has a list of synonyms listed that may not be spoken to help their team guess the vocabulary word. Should they use a listed word, the opposing team may say "beep", and the contestant must move on to the next word without receiving a point. The contestant may ONLY use speech to prompt his or her teammates.
While the contestant is prompting his teammates they may guess the vocabulary word as many times as they like with no penalties for wrong guesses. Once the team correctly guesses the word exactly as written on the card, the contestant will move on to the next game card.