Apples to Apples

Ever played the game Apples to Apples? Is it not the funnest game ever!? I LOVE playing at home with my family. I LOVE it so much I have four different versions of Apples to Apples. Yes you read right, FOUR. Apples to Apples Original. Apples to Apples Junior. Rotten Apples to Apples. and Disney Apples to Apples. Best games ever.

Last year I tried to play Apples to Apples Junior with my second graders. It worked...ish. I sat all 15 of my second graders around in a circle, dealt out cards and explained the game. Played a practice round and then went on with the game just like you would at home, except with fifteen people. Well...I didn't think about my second graders not being able to read or understand the cards so there was a LOT of management on my part and reading and explaining cards, which then in turn meant everyone knew who's card was who's. The kids were tired and bored by the end of round one. Needless to say we never played again...in second grade.

However in FIFTH GRADE...

I changed the way we played. We played in teams. I grouped my kids by their tables groups, dealt out 7-8 red cards and then I drew the green cards and had them play to me. Each time me picking the winner of the green card. They loved it! However I was doing all the work. They begged me to play again so we did...
The second time we played I let them pick their own teammates. Each group still had 7-8 red cards. But I played the first green card and picked a winner and then the groups rotated clockwise so that each group got to choose a winner of their green card. Playing in groups can be tricky because agreeing on one thing is not always easy. But the kids loved it even better this way. They were also explaining why they were picking certain cards to match or not match the green card. It was awesome and all I had to do was listen to their awesome brains and watch their teamwork and excitement.

Now a small group of them plays at recess. I did have to explain that in "real life" you don't have to play in teams, we just do in class to make it easier and move quicker. But they LOVE it. If you have 4 graders and older get Apples to Apples Junior and try it out. It is an awesome comparison game. Not to mention it used nouns and adjectives. (in case you didn't know the read cards are all nouns and the green cards are all adjectives)

I have thought of all kinds of cool ideas to use a follow ups to playing the game.

*with the green cards you have won, write a story using the winning green cards to describe the nouns you have left in your hand
*with the green cards you have won, write a story using the winning green cards to describe any characters
*with the green cards you have won, write a synonym or antonym for the word on the card
*with the remaining red cards you have write a story about these people, places or things

Just things like that so that the kids are using the parts of speech more.

I have thought about trying to add a "blue deck" that has verbs to it. And having the kids decide whether to pull a green or blue card and that blue cards would be worth 2 points or something like that. But it was just an idea.