39 ESL Vocabulary Activities: For Teenagers and Adults - Jackie Bolen, Jennifer Booker Smith 2015

Boggle
Games and activities for all levels

Skills: Writing

Time: 10 minutes

Materials: “Boggle” grid on PowerPoint, whiteboard or paper

You've probably played the word game Boggle before. You shake up the letters and then you have a certain amount of time to make some words with connecting letters. You can play it with your students but you don't need the actual Boggle game. Simply make up a grid on the whiteboard, PowerPoint or on a piece of paper. I make a 6x6 grid and put some obvious words in like the names of colors or animals, or the vocabulary that we've recently been studying. Then, students divide into pairs and have to make as many words as possible that are 4+ letters. You can give a bonus for longer words if you like. At the end, students count up how many points they have. You can double-check for any errors and then award a small prize to the winning team.

Procedure:

1. Prepare a “Boggle” grid.

2. Students divide into pairs and try to make as many words as possible with 4+ letters. Students cannot use the same letter in a single square twice within a single word.

3. Students add up points. The teacher checks the answers of the top two or three teams.

Some possible words from this board: green, pink, rake, back, fire, fires, fast, road, rose