Animal, Vegetable or Mineral

Type: Individual

Equipment: Prepare some cue cards with simple questions on them (eg ‘Are they human?’ ‘Are they smooth?’ ‘Can you eat it?’). This is in case anyone can’t think of a question to ask during the game.

Setup: Everyone should get into groups of between two and five people.

Extra Measures: Print out plenty of cue cards (so only one person touches each) or laminate them so they can be cleaned between games.

Description

Choose a volunteer to go first. That person should think of an animal, vegetable or mineral.

• The ‘animal’ may be any creature, living or dead, and may include well-known humans (e.g. Nelson Mandela).
• The ‘vegetable’ may be any plant or tree.
• The ‘mineral’ may be any natural object that is non-living (e.g. any element from the Periodic Table of Elements).

Players should try to be specific. For example, if they want to choose a mineral and that mineral is a stone, it should be a type of stone like ‘chalk,’ ‘granite’ or ‘limestone.’ Players may ask the person leading the activity for the right word, if they aren’t sure about their choice.

The person who has chosen should tell the rest of their group whether the thing they’ve thought of is an animal, vegetable or mineral. Between them, each group should take turns to ask the person who chose the object a question, until 20 questions have been asked. Each question should have a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answer. In this time, everyone in the group should use the information to try and guess the animal, vegetable or mineral. Each round lasts until 20 questions have been asked or the object is guessed. If someone guesses correctly what the animal, vegetable or mineral was, they can choose the next object. If no-one guesses correctly, the chooser can have another turn.

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