Why play Imperative Spoons?

This exciting, quick-moving game reinforces what imperatives are. It reinforces that imperatives are commands and that they are an important sentence type. And really- it’s just fun! It’s a wonderful and clever way to keep reinforcing what you are teaching while your students see it as a fun break time.

How to play Imperative Spoons

To play spoons:

Game Setup:

1.       Shuffle the cards.

2.       Place spoons in the middle of the students within everyone’s reach. There should be one spoon less than the total number of students.

3.       Deal each player 4 cards. Place the stack of extra cards to the right of one student (or separate it into two or more stacks and place the stacks to the right of two or more students for groups larger than four).

4.       Show the students the list of potential Imperatives they could be finding matches for.

Game Play:

1.       The student(s) with the stack(s) will pick up one card from the stack to their right and select one card to discard, making a pile on their left. The student to their left will pick up that card, select one card to discard and place it down to their left for the next student.

2.       Students will continue in this pattern, picking up one card at a time from the pile on their right and discarding one card into the pile on their left until one student has only 4 related cards in their hand.

3.       The first student to complete a set will quietly take a spoon, trying not to let anyone else notice.

4.       Once one person takes a spoon, every student will try to take a spoon.

5.       The person who does not get a spoon loses that round. At this point, in normal spoons, that person would be out, you would remove a spoon, and you would repeat the steps to play additional rounds until you were down to the person who draws the final spoon and is declared the winner. For larger groups with less time, you can always just play another round with everyone still in the game.

Note: Students may not at any time have more than 5 cards in their hand.

How to Print this Document

Print: Two sided (front and back; flipping along the long edge) on cardstock.