Matching Minds: A Quick-thinking Creativity Game

Fast-paced Vocabulary Action

Challenge your students’ knowledge and vocabulary with this fast-paced competition, Matching Minds. Similar to Scattergories, Matching Minds will put students’ word association to the test as they strive to come up with unique words that fit specific categories.

What You’ll Need

• Matching Minds presentation (see below)
• Individual dry erase boards for answers (paper works just as well)

Setup

Setup is easy. After you make a copy of the slide deck, you’ll just duplicate the final slide for as many rounds as you want.

Next, create the categories for each round (e.g. “Movie titles that start with F,” “Restaurants that start with T,” “Tone words that start with E”). I’ve found that it adds more to student buy-in if you mix in content categories with pop culture categories.

When you’re ready, fire up the presentation and have students pair up. Each student will need an answer document (small dry erase board or a sheet of paper)

Game On!

Let’s play!

1. Students will pair up and face each other. The key to this game is for students to not see the answers their partner is writing.
2. Reveal the category for the first round. Students have 30 seconds to write down an idea that fits the category. Students shouldn’t look at each other’s answers yet.
3. When the timer runs out, students will reveal their responses to each other. If they wrote different answers that fit the category, their team earns a point. You are the final judge of what is an acceptable answer for the category. “Cleaning products that start with W” could be Windex or simple window cleaner.
4. Repeat for however many rounds you want. The team with the most points after the final round wins.

Game Variations

For larger class sizes, it may be better to turn this into a team competition. Teams come up with one idea to fit the category. Any team that successfully comes up with a term not used by any other teams earns a point.

Teaching Points

There are a few different reflection/discussion points you can make after playing:

• Creativity and Divergent Thinking: A big part of creativity is to move beyond the first thought that comes to mind. When you allow your mind to make different associations to ideas, you see unique results. If students go with the first idea that comes to mind, it increases the change they will end up with the same response.
• Communication: By taking away the ability for students to communicate, the game highlights the importance of effectively communicating with others when working together. If students are working together on a project but not communicating with each other, then they can end up duplicating the same work, causing more work in the long run.
• Importance of Brainstorming: The timer takes away a lot of the procrastination students might have in generating ideas. When brainstorming ideas, students would do well to set a time limit and spitball as many ideas as they can think of.

Downloads

Download the Google or Canva version of Matching Minds. For Google, click the button below, then click the blue “Use Template” button. For Canva, click the button below, then click “File” and “Make a Copy”.