[redcopper]

I like the concept behind Hangman but don't like the gruesome nature of the ending. Is it only me? I currently use a jail theme. i draw a face as a start and then build a prison around the face starting with the 4 sides of a wall, then 4 sides of a window frame and finally the bars across the face. Does anyone have any other ideas to replace the hanging man?

[Eric]

i dont like the gruesome nature of hangman but i dont have another more friendlier version. i have played drowning man before, but thats just as bad...

i like the jail cell man...

what about homework man. try to keep the 'man' from getting (too much) homework...

just a thought

[mesmark]

I do something similar to that. I draw a structure like a old western cowboy jail house with no cell to start. Then as the students make mistakes, I draw the four walls of the square and then add two vertical bars and that's the end.

If the jail is completed, I throw them into it. I then draw a little sad man inside. It's even better if you have a place in the room designated as the 'jail.' This is the place where losers must go and sit, write something or read something until they are broken out or the game is over.

[redcopper]

Love it!!

[lemonzest]

My one junior high teacher is one of the "oh no, a dead body is too harsh for the students!" types, and so she was using "the flower game" - draw a flower with a limited number of petals, for each wrong guess erase one until the flower is gone. I managed to change her mind with "the shark game" - draw a shark with an open mouth and lots of teeth, and a ladder above his mouth with a man standing on top. For every wrong guess, erase a rung of the ladder, and then the man will get eaten. For some reason, she approved of this version, and the kids all seem to think it's funny.

[mesmark]

Nice!

dead body -->> inappropriate
man mangled by shark -->> just good clean fun

[redcopper]

Thanks for the ideas. I don't know if kids make any connection between a hanging man and the real thing but I just don't like the idea. Call me squeamish if you must.
I like the jail theme and Mesmark's idea with the classroom jail sounds like good fun and even, dare I say it, more exciting than a hanging man.

[mesmark]

recopper - Thanks!

I think it's more fun than the original. If you do make a small jail in the room it really encourages students not to lose. Also, add that each time someone jails a classmate, they can free another. That keeps the jailhouse from overcrowding and the game can still continue. It also gives the jailees some hope.

Another way they can escape is solve 10 unscrambled words or something like that.

It's probably best just tell them about the jail part for the intitial explanation and once the game gets rolling explain how they can get out.

[veryv]

You can get rid of the death sequence all together by playing hangman more like the American game show "Wheel of Fortune." Instead of being penalized for wrong answers, students can be rewarded for correct answers.

I read about one really motivated teacher who actually went to the trouble of creating a prize wheel, like the actual game show. I didn't even want to attempt that, but I did make two big pair of dice out of some boxes and assigned point values to all the possible combinations. Since I'm in Japan, the unlucky number 4 equaled "bankrupt" and I arbitrarily assigned another value as "lose a turn." Everything else was worth points (or yen in my case because I printed up some fake money, but you don't have to get that complicated). I divide the class into teams, they roll the dice and guess a letter. If the letter appears on the board the team receives (the value of the dice) times (the number of times the letter is in the word or phrase). So if you roll a dice combination with the point value of 1000 and you guess the letter "e" and it appears twice in the phrase, you get 1000 points X 2, or 2000 points. If the letter does not appear in the phrase, I don't take away points (though you could if you want to be hardcore), we just move on to the next team.

At this point, there is more than one way to proceed, but here's what I do. In order to keep everyone engaged, if a team has guessed a letter correctly, they get first dibs on trying to solve the puzzle. If they can't solve it, it's up for grabs for any team. If no one knows, we move on to the next team to start it all again.

My kids like it because they think rolling the big dice is goofy and funny and they like to get paid, even if it's fake money. It's complicated to explain, but simple to understand once you just start playing it, you just have to lead them through the steps of roll the dice, guess a letter, get some money, and they figure it out rather quickly.

Hope this makes some sense. Good luck!

[redcopper]

Thanks veryv.
Another excellent idea. Bye,bye hangman. Where's Vanna?

[bosco]

I work in China, and the kids here weren't familiar with the hanging of the man before I played it with them. Instead, they used a Chinese character (I can't remember which, it might have been "Lose"), which had a certain number of strokes. Once the character was complete, the students would lose.

[David Hood]

I'm kinda differnet, i like to not only hang it, but draw and quarter it too. My games are vicious, but tehy take months of horrible torture. Appendix anyone?

[ElaineB]

I've been warned against playing hangman with my kids as the area of Japan that I'm in is notorious for it's high suicide rate.....

[mesmark]

Quote ElaineB

I've been warned against playing hangman with my kids as the area of Japan that I'm in is notorious for it's high suicide rate.....

That's a pretty good reason. Maybe some of the other takes one the game might be OK.

[Maryann Margaret]

The idea of using a kanji and erassing a stroke for each missed turn is good but...you put their mind back into their native language. Any good Language Professor will tell you, that switching back and forth encourages translating in their head instead of thinking in the target language. Not...a good idea if you ask me.

[Maryann Margaret]

We had a student who is not in the game sit in a chair. We said he/she was sitting over a pond of water. Everytime someone missed a letter we added a rock to her lap. After 15 rocks...splash she was dunked and the "teacher" won the game. If the class won the game, the "teacher" was hypothetically dunked. Made everyone pay attention very closely since dunking the teacher tickled their fancy.
Might appeal to everyone! Funny consequence, no being eaten by sharks, or hung by the neck until dead. Can be played by teams, (then opposite team is hypothetically dunked) or teacher against the class...depends on the number of kids in the class. I've played this with one student and he loves dunking me. Unfortunately, his vocabulary is getting so diverse, I get dunked as often as he.

[Eric]

Quote Maryann Margaret

We had a student who is not in the game sit in a chair. We said he/she was sitting over a pond of water.

i like this method. it sounds more positive and fun. i wonder though, do the students every try to intentionally dunk their fellow students?