Games in Google: Guess Who

I love games. I love playing them and I loved finding ways to play them with students in my World Language classroom! One of my favorites was Guess Who. I often used it in three different units, clothing, physical features/body parts, and professions (some versions had people in different professional uniforms pictured). I just collected as many physical board games as I could and split the class into stations when I didn’t have enough games.

This got me thinking, while the physical game is nice, it could be done in Google Slides, similarly to the memory game from a few weeks ago (or printed out and cut apart).

Here’s how to make it (there is a link to my template at the bottom too)!

Setup Instructions

1. Open a new Google Slides document
2. Set the page size to something you would like. I used 8.5 x 11 in for mine, but any size will work. In the File menu, select Page Setup. Select the drop down and click custom, then you can type in any size you would like.

3. 3. Go to the Insert Shape button and select rounded squares (I like this because it looks the most like the Guess Who cards I played when I was a kid!)

4. Select the shape once you are happy with it and copy it. Paste the shape and arrange it where you would like it. Once you do all of the boxes in a row/column, select the whole column and then copy and paste it to save time!
5. Once you have all the rows set up the way you would like them, you can use the arrange drop down and select distribute to make sure all the boxes are evenly spaced on the board.

6. Download the slide to prevent the boxes from moving around while students are playing the game. Select File and then Download as and .jpg. This will download just this current slide as an image file.

7. Once you have the image file on your computer, go back into your slides and insert a new blank slide. The name of the file will be the name of Slide deck.
8. Click on Background in the center of the toolbar.
9. Then click “choose” next to image to select the image you just downloaded from your computer. This will set the cards as the background image on the slide.

10. Select the people that students will be guessing. This can be done by the teacher in advance, by the whole class, or by individual playing teams. Some ideas of people to choose are:
• Historical figures studied in social studies
• Famous scientists/mathematicians/philosophers/authors
• Celebrities (works great for clothing in World Language classes)
• Characters in a novel (this could be just names if you don’t have images)
• Animals
• Cartoon Monsters (for colors or physical features in World Language)
• Anything else you can think of!

In Class Instructions

11. Make a copy of the slide with the people on it for each student (for ease of distribution, use Google Classroom).
12. Have each student select a person from the options provided.
13. Encourage students to ask questions about what the person/character did and not just about clothing or background (unless that is the learning goal)
14. Students can do research about their person if it is being done as an introduction to the unit
15. Have students place their devices back to back so they cannot see the other’s screen
    Students take turns guessing who their partner selected. When a person/character is eliminated, students can place an X over them to mark who is out.(Students could also delete photos if they will only be playing it once). Students can use the undo button to remove Xs when they are finished with the game
16. As a turn in at the end of the period, students can write a list of questions asked and who they removed with each answer. If they made their own board with partners, have them turn in the game boards too!

Have fun and if you have any ideas, I would enjoy hearing them!

Links: Guess Who Template