Stump the Wizard
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It goes like this:
Kendall: "I need a coach...Kyle!"
They confer in the back seat of the car and in a minute we hear "I'm thinking of a word that starts with a "P"
Mom: "It is an animal"
Kyle: "No, it's not a 'pig'."
Mom: "It is an animal"
Kyle: "No, it's not a 'pelican'."
Mom: "It is an animal"
Kyle: "No, it's not a 'parrot'."
Delaney: "Is it the word in the military alphabet that starts with 'P'?"
Kyle: "No, it's not 'Parade'."
Delaney: "Is it the word in the military alphabet that starts with 'P'?"
Kyle: "Sorry Kendall, I don't know that one."
Delaney (laughing): "It's 'Papa'!"
Kyle: "The next letter is 'a'."
Dad: "Is it something used to carry water?
Kyle: "No, it's no a 'pail'."
Mom: "Is it something you do when you're very scared?
Kyle: "No, it's no a 'panic'."
In case you haven't guessed, it's a car game we play called "Stump the Wizard". You try to guess the word by asking questions of the Wizard. If you can ask a question the wizard cannot answer, then you get the next letter. All subsequent answers to your questions must use the letters you have. If the wizard can come up with 3 answers to your question, then he or she is off the hook and the question is discarded. We've played this quite often and it's fun, just hard enough to make it challenging, but it's not too often that the word can't be eventually guessed.
It's fun and you might want to try it sometime. So for a Friday poll, let's get off technology.
What's a fun game to play with others that passes the time?
With family, friends, even something to do while that next Service Pack is being applied. 20 Questions used to be our favorite before this one.
A funny story: we played Stump the Wizard a bunch of times while driving around Cancun in June and of the dozen or so games we played, we were stumped twice. Both times by our 6 year old daughter, Kendall! She uses whoever is sitting next to her as her "coach." She comes up with the word and they respond to the questions.
The words? Palace and Vulture.
PS - Support Katie and her family : Purchase a raffle ticket today for a chance to win some great prizes.
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We used to play a game where somebody would name a city. The next person would have to name the next city whose name started with the last letter of the city mentioned before. The only restriction was you couldn't name the city twice. Hence Amsterdam...Maastricht...Toronto...Ottawa...Alkmaar...etc...
Sometimes we'd extend it to using names of countries, provinces, rivers, seas etc as well.
Very good for the geographic vocabulary.
Come to think of it, if you put all these names in a table, it might be a nice excersize for those loomy summer afternoons to come up with an algorithm using the whole table or find the longest chain.
Anyone up for a game of SQL ?
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As you say, the Country game is good for the kids' geography.
When we have a family meal we usually play "the Word game". One person chooses a letter, and the next person adds a letter to the front or back but without making a word. The first person to make a word loses a life and starts again. Each person has three lives and the first person in a game to lose a life gets a "free life". One-letter and two-letter words don't count.
Afterwards, we often play 3-card Brag. Usual rules for play, but simplified betting. The dealer puts 5p in the kitty (a brass bowl in the centre of the table) and then each person in turn either packs or throws 1p into the kitty. When a couple of people have good hands you get a furious ching-ching-ching as the money goes in. When there are only two people left, one can say "see you" at any point.
In the car, we play the "No Returns" game. If, say, you see a yellow car, you say "yellow car, and no returns" and get a point. The categories are yellow cars, Minis, Beetles, Smart cars, bicycles, and motorbikes. I've no idea why you have to say "no returns", but it gives other people a chance to chip in when you get several vehicles together. If a vehicle is in two categories, you can only have one, e.g you see a yellow Mini and say "yellow car, and no returns" and someone else can say "Mini, and no returns".
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I have two variations of what we call the Movie Game that I like to play with other friends who are also film buffs.
In the first one, you have to name two actors that have been in a movie together, but only one movie, and name the movie. Then the other player has to take one of those actors, pair them with someone else who they've only been in one movie with, and name the movie. If you run into a dead end and can't think of one, that's a strike. It's also a strike if you name a pair of actors who have been in more than one movie together, but the other player has to notice it and name another movie they've been in. First player to three strikes loses.
The other variation is simpler. It's basically Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, but you use other actors. This one's not competitive, but it gets fun when people start coming up with bizarre combinations, like connecting Toshiro Mifune and Hayley Duff, or Boris Karloff and Cedric the Entertainer. To make it harder, you can make "The Player" off limits as a movie that can be used to make connections.
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I like the Six Degrees one. We've done the movie guess with 20 questions. Amazing how hard it is to pick a movie no one can guess.
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Stump the Wizard sounds like fun. I'll have to try it with the Cub Scouts.
One we do is called the Quiz. Usually we pick a topic, animals is my daughter's favorite, different wars are my sons favorite, then each person takes a turn. They think of something like a part of an animal or a particular battle or a general or a person, whatever. Then you say, "I'm thinking of a battle." People start shouting answers "Gettysburg" is always a safe one to try with my son because he can't seem to remember the names of any of the others. If no one guesses, you give another hint. "It took place in WWI". No one guesses, another hint. "It was fought between the Aussies/Brits and Turkey." As people miss, you keep giving information. At some point you've exhausted the general information and you have to give the name of the thing. We've found our kids are learning more stuff by playing the game because my wife and I will repeat topics. Oh, and if you get the right answer, you get to pick the next word if not the same person picks another one.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore RooseveltAuthor of:
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For a short distraction we use the alphabet to determine the words. Topic can be cars, movies, names, cities, animals, whatever. My daughter prefers animals, my wife and I like to think of names. We also play 20 questions, but everyone usually starts out with "thing!" which is really not much of a hint!
Good weekend all!
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We have a word association game we like to play in the car when traveling. Somebody chooses a word and the next person says the first word that comes to mind upon hearing the first word. The next person goes off the word that the second person gave, etc.
For example: Green - Tree - Trunk - Car - Bus - Pass - Fail...
You might need to set some rules about not saying words that are off limits for the group. We try to limit words like "stupid" and "dumb", especially when following a person's name.
It's non-competitive and there can be some pretty wild twist of how words come up. Sometimes you can find out some things that your kids are thinking about (fears, worries, etc.) in a very non-threatening way.
Steve
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You can also play the "Non-Association" game, where the next player has to say a word that has no association at all with the previous word (and also no association with the last word they themselves said).
Other people challenge if they can make an association between the current and previous word.
It's surprisingly difficult.
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Another car game when you have two kids in the car is counting the Eyes on pub signs.
E.g. you pass the Green Man pub on the left. In the pub sign, the Green Man is looking straight at you so the child on the left gets 2 points for 2 eyes. Then you pass the Red Lion on the right. The lion is looking sideways so you can only see 1 eye, so the child on the right gets 1 point.
This probably only works in England!
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When driving on a long trip, we sometimes play the "Billboard Alphabet" game. OK I just made that name up - we never referred to it using a name before.
You start with "A" and someone (anyone in the car) needs to find a billboard (or sign) that has a word on it that starts with "A". Then on to "B" etc. all the way through the alphabet. No score is kept, it's just a fun way to pass the time.
You can crank up the pressure by trying to see how far you can get through the alphabet when you only have a short distance left to drive.
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When we've gone on long car trips we play the license plate game (probably only works in the states, but maybe a different version overseas?). Try to find license plates for all 50 states. Hawaii and Alaska are particularly challenging, but being in California we can usually do it - especially on the way to Disneyland.
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We play a memory game, not sure what it's called. Here are the rules, basically:
Suppose you have 3 players, numbered by going clockwise in the vehicle, players 1-3.
Player 1 says "I'm going to <Player 1 thinks of a place that starts with A> and I'm bringing an <Player 1 thinks of a thing that starts with A>.
Player 2 then repeats everything player 1 said and adds something that starts with B to the list.
Player 3 then repeats everything player 2 said and adds something that starts with C to the list.
It's then Player 1's turn....
When you get all the way through the alphabet you can just quit, or you can keep going by repeating everything and then saying "...and I'm going to <place that starts with B> and I'm taking...."
Additional rules: You can use multiple words for a single letter, but all words must start with the letter. For instance, for letter T you could say "Ten Tables" or "Ten Tall Tables", or as many words that start with T and make at least some sense. As in most word games, try to stay away from proper names.
Here's an example of what might be said on one turn: "I'm going to Alaska and I'm bringing an apple, a brown bear, a copper coin, and a diamond."
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