1. This activity works best in small teams (3–7). See Suggestions (under "Make it Better") for a few different ways to play the game.
2. Describe the rules of Word Bluff:

• One person looks up a word in the dictionary and writes it on a piece of paper. It should be a word you don’t think anyone in the room has heard before.
• The other players write what they think the word means on a piece of paper with their name on it. Names should be written on the same side as the definition.
• All the definitions are placed into a hat, box or bag.
• The person who picked the word adds the real definition into the hat.
• All the definitions are read out loud by the person who chose the word (or by the teacher). The other players vote on which definition they think is the correct one.
• Each person who guesses the real definition scores a point.
• Any votes received by a made-up definition each count as a point for the person who invented the definition.
• If a player makes up a definition that is the same as the real definition, that player scores 2 points.
• If the correct definition is not guessed, the person who chose the word scores 5 points.
• The player to the left of the definition picker gets to choose the next word. Play continues until a certain score is reached, until students have had a certain number of turns or until a certain time. Decide on this end point ahead of time so that players are aware of it.

After 2 words have been played, bring your students together to talk about what they have done. Is it easy or hard to guess what words mean? Was anyone close in guessing the correct definition? Did anyone have any funny definitions? Do some words give us clues about what they might mean? Does anyone have any tips for inventing believable definitions?

Send students back to keep playing until the session is over. Play this game regularly - kids will get pretty good at creating inventive definitions to words, and they’ll also start to notice some patterns in word parts that will clue them in to what certain words mean.

Variations:

• If you have several dictionaries available, divide your class into as many teams as you have dictionaries, making sure to keep the team size to between 3 and 7 children.
• To play with a large group, divide the class into 5 teams. Each team plays as described above for individual players - teams pick definitions together, invent definitions as a team and guess cooperatively as well.
• If your students are a little younger, you can pick the words and ask teams to come up with definitions that they then whisper to you. Write these all down (making sure to note which teams came up with which definitions), read them aloud and have teams vote. Score the same as described above.
• Another variation of the game is to have the person who picks the word act as a judge, with the object being that the other players make up definitions that are funny. The judge will choose the made up definition he/she likes best. The player whose definition is chosen gets a point and then gets to be the judge.