One of Each

Getting Started:

• Prepare a list of categories for each round. We played this recently and used: Superheroes, restaurants, candy, countries, bands, stuff you’d use to make a pizza, and animals at a zoo. 

Instructions: 

• Launch the game and display it on your screen -- Have two students stand in the middle of the stage/room and make sure they can see the screen. Have your other students (who want to play) line up on each side so that once someone is out, the next in line and quickly jump in. 
• Explain that they will be given a category and they will have go to back and forth naming items in that category. The catch is they have 3 seconds to name an item and they can’t name an item that starts with a letter that has already been used. Once someone is out, the next person in their line has to run up and play immediately. Make it clear who is going first. Now announce the first category: “The first category is superheroes! Go!” The person running the computer taps the spacebar which makes a beep. The 4th tap is a buzz. They just have to separate each spacebar tab by about a second. This isn’t automated because it becomes difficult to manage when a student correctly says a letter, but the person on the computer isn’t fast enough to enter it before the buzz. So we make it manual. This also helps if you have special needs students who might need more time in between beeps. That way you can slow it down if needed. 
• When an item is called and the letter is entered, the letter on the screen is greyed out and the spacebar beep count is reset to 0. If an item’s first letter is already used, the person on the computer will still enter it, but it will cause the buzzer to go off which means that student is out. It’s your choice when to switch to a new category. 
• We found that it works well to allow students to jump in while the same category is still in play. We never completed the alphabet in one category purely because the pacing felt like changing to a new one after a few student got out felt right. 
• For example, the category was Superheros, we had 5 students get out and only got through 18 letters. Once another student got out, we reset the board and changed the category to candy. To reset the board, just hit the Enter key on your keyboard!