Morning Meeting Game - Categories

This is a neat game to play during morning meeting. I call it categories because students are given a category and each have to come up with something that fits into it. An example is animals. You can ask students simply to name an animal, to name an animal that is a mammal, to name a reptile that lives in a forest habitat, to name an animal that lives in your state or country and is a fish, etc. You can change it up for difficulty. I included some pictures for prompts for younger students.

I like playing Scategories-style with older students. When they come into the room, I have it posted as a "Do Now" so they get started and are ready to bring their written lists to the circle. The object for them is not only to stay in the category, but also to come up with words that no one else says (this leads itself to different word choices and vocabulary development). It's a great interdisciplinary lesson as you can include topics in all areas and play over and over again with different categories. Enjoy, and check out these books from Responsive Classroom! I especially like the Morning Meeting Messages  and Afternoon Wrap-up books.