Make sure that when a student has finished their turn they sit down otherwise you'll soon find all the students crowded around the board and the abler students will do all the work. The students are not allowed to take their books to the board with them. It adds to the excitement of the game when a student forgets how to spell a word half way through it and has to go back to their book to look at it again. You could also let the student's team mates tell them how to spell it. Either way of resolving this problem is OK.

If you are using this game with 'Word Families', make sure that the students don't write the words in exactly the same order as they appear in the book. 'Word Families' mostly come in lists and we don't want an exact carbon copy of what's in the book. The idea is to get the students thinking about what they are doing even if it just means that they are writing down what's in the list in a different order.

Next give each team a small peice of paper and have them write down *one* word from the vocabulary under discussion on the peice of paper fold it and give it to you. You will then look at it so you know which words each team has chosen, refold it and use a magnet to stick the peice of paper on the board. It's a good idea to make a big thing out of not letting the other team not see which word a team has chosen as it adds to the fun.

Now we are ready to start playing the actual game. Pick a member of the team that won word race described above and have them try to guess what the other team's word is. They have to pronounce it correctly and tell you what it means. Here I'm pretty lax and not too rigorous about how they do this. The main thing is that you see they know what it means. If they get it right, they win the round. The more likely outcome is that they won't guess the other team's word and so you put a little cross in the corner of the chosen word's square. Make sure that it is only a little cross so that when you play another round it can be erased without messing up the words. The play then moves on to the second team and they try to guess the first team's word. A very short time limit is a good idea here as the students, apart from the first player's from each team, get plenty of time to think about their word as the play moves around from team to team. I like to give the students three seconds to answer. If not, they lose their turn and the play moves on. Also, if a player repeats a word that has already been used they lose their turn. When there is a winner, give that team a big tick next to their grid. Return the peices of paper to the teams and start the whole process over again. The overall winner is the team with the most ticks next to their grid.