FREE Word Play Game, Team Building Activity, Worksheet for Sponge Time

Know that awkward moment when you’ve finish a lecture early, all questions have been answered, and there’s still – yikes! – 10 minutes left in the period? Or do you have one of those classes that seems to finish everything about 15 minutes earlier than all of your other sections?

The solution is to keep ‘em busy until the end of the hour with fun and meaningful activities. This handy “Just Give the Word” print-and-teach worksheet was built to help fill all available class time. The handout can be used as an in-class or homework assignment, substitute teacher materials, or game/contest sheet. A completed example is also included for teacher and student reference.

As a game, place students in teams of two or three and give one sheet to each team. Then, announce the letter you have chosen (pick a common one, like “e,” “s,” or “t”) and the amount of time (anywhere from 5 to 12 minutes) you’re giving teams to work on their answers. You could announce that the team with the highest number of word points will win the sole prize or, even better, announce that any team scoring more than, say, 50 word points will win an extra credit point/a piece of candy/homework pass/whatever. (For lower-level classes, I would give teams 5 minutes to work and then allow the use of a dictionary and/or thesaurus for the remaining contest time.)

Want more rigorous, high-interest materials for your English class?

Click here for a full semester of Brain Teasers.

Click here for 250+ Analogies/Logic Puzzlers.

Click here for Word ADDiction, another FREE print-and-go resource.

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Green star image credit: Pixabay, Public domain