Creativity Game with Google Slides - Why Did the Chicken...?

This post contains a link to the template you need to play this game, but you'll also want to see this one which explains how to run the game with your class.

Many of my most popular posts on this blog are the creativity games and exercises I created and shared about four years ago. I finally translated one of those into a Google Slides format, which I hope will allow more people to enjoy it.

When played as a classroom game, it allows 3 - 5 creative students to compete to make the best answers to random riddles. The class participates by voting on their favorite. I've seen middle school and high school students enjoy this game.

I also will list a few suggestions at the end of this post about other ways to use the activity, possibly with less time or allowing more students to create the fun answers.

First, here's the flow of the game when used with the whole class. 

1. Choose 3 to 5 students to be the contestants in the game. They should sit at the front of the room. They'll need either paper or a computer, depending on how you want them to share their riddle answers with you.
2. The teacher draws a random riddle as shown in the video below.
3. The contestants get two minutes to write their best answer to the riddle. Those answers and shared with the teacher.
4. The teacher reads the answers that were submitted and they are entered in the game slide.
5. The students in the class vote on the their favorite answer (using a classroom response system or possibly Google Forms).
6. Points are awarded to the contestants based on the number of votes they received.
7. Steps 2 - 6 are repeated three or four times, then scores are totaled to determine a winner.

Here is the Google Slides presentation that you'll need to play this game or to do any of the activities listed below.

Click to have a copy of the Google Slides presentation added to your Google Drive. 

Video Overview

This 4 minute video shows the basics of creating the random riddles and playing the game with a class.

Tips and suggestions for other ways to use the activity

• Have some things to show the class while the students write their random riddles. 
• It's easy to change some of the words that I have in the game, or you can just add a few. Pick things from your school, like your football team or the cafeteria. If you're feeling brave, put your name in the mix! This gives students a chance to practice being funny while still being respectful.
• Have the other students write riddle answers too. After the vote, have some of them share their answers if they want.
• If you don't want to devote much class time to the game, just generate a random riddle at the end of class and have all students answer it for homework. You can select your top 5 and have them vote on the best one as a warm-up in a later class.
• Be sure to read my post about creativity exercises that can be used before playing this game.