Design Your Own Meaning of Beep Game

Challenge students to create and play their own paper version of The Meaning of Beep.

Materials Needed:

• Meaning of Beep template (print double-sided)
• Game board (printout)
• Pick and Super Pick tokens (printout)
• Pencils
• Scissors
• Thesaurus

Directions for Making the Game

1. Divide the class into groups of 4. Explain to students that they will be making an offline Meaning of Beep game for another group to play.
2. Provide each group with the Meaning of Beep template. How many templates you provide depends on how many rounds they want to play.
3. Invite groups to consider a topic they’re studying now, or one that interests them, then search for a BrainPOP movie on that topic and watch it.
4. After watching, have students generate a list of topic-related words from the movie. They should come up with as many words as rounds of their game. If three rounds, then three words (and three Meaning of Beep templates). Advise students to avoid content-specific nouns, such as subatomic or monotheism, because finding synonyms for such words will be impossible. Suggest that they consider verbs and adjectives.
5. Have students identify at least nine synonyms for each word, using a thesaurus to help. Remind them that they can use phrases for synonyms. Once they agree on the target words and synonyms, they should write them on the Meaning of Beep Template. If three target words, they will need three templates.
6. Instruct groups to come up with three sentences for each word that use the word and synonyms in context, and that include plenty of context clues to help players figure out the missing word. The third sentence must be in the context of the topic, and the others can too, but don’t have to be. Suggest that they agree upon the sentences before writing them in the spaces on the Meaning of Beep template. They may want to brainstorm them on paper before deciding which to use.  When they are ready, make sure they include a line for the missing word.
7. Instruct students to fold the their template so the answers are on the inside, hidden from view.

Directions for Playing the Game

1. Provide each group with the game board and tokens. Have them cut out the tokens.
2. Have each group swap their game with another group.
3. When ready to play, the group reveals the first sentence only, keeping the other two concealed. Then each player writes down a guess of the missing word in his or her column in the Round 1 space on the game board. NOTE: Students should decide in advance who is Player 1, Player 2, etc. Each round and associated tokens are color-coded to match.
4. Next, each player is to place a Pick or Super Pick token on the guess they think is the best fit.  Remind students that if they use a Super Pick and it’s wrong, they will lose points.
5. Repeat for Rounds 2 and 3, revealing each sentence as they progress through the game. But remind them that they cannot use the same word twice, instead they need to think of synonyms that make sense in all of the sentences.
6. After Round 3, the group is to open the template to see the “Meaning of Beep” and its associated synonyms.
7. Finally, groups are to tally the points as follows:

• 1 point for correct guesses and correct Picks
• 2 points for correct Super Picks
• -1 point for incorrect Super Picks