One Word at a Time

Colleen Egan

What you need: a piece of paper, pencil, group members.

How to play: One person starts the activity by writing "Once upon a time" on the piece of paper and then passing it to the left. The next person in the circle then adds his/her own phrase onto the sentence, which results in a story that is made by all group members. However, when adding a phrase, members can only look at the phrase last written. 

Proposed Result: Members will able creativity through their phrases. It will also test members' ability to put a sentence together. Some might have a difficult time coming up with a phrase that "makes sense", but the great part about this exercise is that is doesn't have make sense. 

Result: Here's our story:

Once upon a time in a land far away there was a fairy princess and three sticks of butter. The fairy princess was on a strict diet that only consisted of string cheese and hard-boiled eggs. She hated to cook cake so she made cookies which tasted like steaks. Her mouth watered and as she walked down the castle steps that were covered in barnacles because the castle flooded in hurricane Katrina. 

In the summer, the princess of the castle traveled on a magical vacation to Bali and she was enamored with all the boos in the library. Suddenly, the library caught fire, trapping her inside. Faced with her impending death she drank a potion that Hermione made. 

The End. 

Conclusion: The One Word at a Time activity was fun and lighter-hearted. We were able to see another side of everyone's personality as well as work off of each others ideas. It also gave us a good laugh. :)