Human Scrabble

For this exercise, you will need either children’s blocks with letters on them, magnetic letters, or index cards with handwritten letters. Each participant should have 1 – 3 letters. Encourage them to mingle to create words. You can choose to score the game by the number of words they participate in, or you can allow each one to score points based on the number of letters in each word. You may use a list of spelling or vocabulary words as a model for younger audiences to spell. You can add a Math Curriculum Connection for older students by adding the scrabble values to the letters to make the scoring more difficult. ​

To process the activity, ask these or similar questions:

• Was that fun to play Scrabble that way?
• Did you like the letters you had?
• Were you one of the ones seeking out others to form words? What if no one did that? What if everyone did that?
• How quickly did the one holding the “Q” connect with the one holding the “U”?
• Were some of your letters used more than others? Did you hold any letters that were never used?
• How much more difficult would it have been if there was a 5-letter minimum word limit? Could you think of any other rules you could add to this game?

  (Hint: You may want to arrange that the participants who are quieter get the vowels to ensure they are engaged in the game.)