🗑️ Family Feud game template for class

🎉 A fun, new social writing game for students

Students don’t have to see writing as a chore. It can be fun. It can be social. And when it is, students will BEG for it.

This new game-based writing platform for students is called WeWillWrite. I met Daniel, the founder, and his team at FETC and have collaborated with them over the last few months to learn about WeWillWrite, and I have to say …

I love it! It’s so different from anything I’ve seen.

• WeWillWrite creates fun writing prompts that students love.

• Students are put into teams and do low-stakes, fun writing.

• They vote on each other’s work and earn points based on the vote.

• The teacher can comment on student writing to the class.

It’s still in beta testing mode, but if you sign up now, you’ll have access as soon as it officially launches in March!

Note: After it launches, it will have a free plan and premium plan, and the free plan is good and one you can actually use. If you sign up now before launch, you’ll get an extended trial of the premium features.

💡 THE BIG IDEA 💡

🎲 A Family Feud template for class (or PD?)

If you’ve seen Family Feud, you know it’s a fun — and often surprising! — game show. It’s been a hit for a long, long time.

With our templates (Google Slides) (PowerPoint), you can host a Family Feud game in class. (Or during teacher professional development!)

Here are all the tips and tools to make it a hit …

🔹 How it works (quick start guide)

• Make a copy of the template (Google Slides) or download it (PowerPoint).

• Customize the questions to fit your lesson.

• Start the game by presenting the slides on the big screen — and students guess the top answers while you reveal them.

NOTE: With this template, you have to reveal the answers from top to bottom. You can’t, for example, reveal the #3 answer and then the #5 answer and then the #1 answer. I know, it’s a limitation to working in Slides/PowerPoint. But you can work around it!

Here’s how I make this work: I ask each team to make their guesses and then we reveal all of the answers.

For more detailed instructions, check out my full Family Feud template how-to guide here: 🔗 How to Run a Family Feud-Style Classroom Game

🔊 Use these online tools for the full experience!

To make your game even more exciting, use these free tools:

🎤 Online Buzzer: BuzzIn.live
(Tip: Have students join on their devices to buzz in just like in a real game show!)

🔊 Sound Effects Board: Soundboard – Game Show Sounds
(Tip: Play the “correct” and “wrong” sounds to enhance the game experience!)

🎵 Family Feud Music: There’s a tiny YouTube video embedded in the second title slide. If you present your slides starting with Slide 1, the music should start automatically when you advance to the second slide.

❓ Need ideas for questions?

Family Feud games are ranked lists, so anything with a ranked list makes for great questions. That could include …

• Student surveys

• Databases and spreadsheets with data

• Statistics

You could even ask an AI assistant like ChatGPT for the top 5 of pretty much anything — and you could just use ChatGPT as the source.

Here are some example questions for different grade levels and subjects to help you think of your own …

🏫 Elementary School

What are the most common animals that hibernate during the winter months?
1️⃣ Bears
2️⃣ Bats
3️⃣ Groundhogs
4️⃣ Hedgehogs
5️⃣ Snakes

🏫 Middle School

What is the most commonly used type of energy in daily life?
1️⃣ Electrical
2️⃣ Thermal (Heat)
3️⃣ Mechanical
4️⃣ Chemical
5️⃣ Solar

🏫 High School

What are the most famous novels in American literature?
1️⃣ To Kill a Mockingbird
2️⃣ The Great Gatsby
3️⃣ 1984
4️⃣ Of Mice and Men
5️⃣ The Catcher in the Rye

Want even more question ideas? In my full how-to guide, there’s a whole section about coming up with questions.

• It includes places to get data and ranked lists.

• It has lots of example questions.

• I even share an AI prompt you can copy into ChatGPT to get Family Feud questions — in seconds!

🔗 Get all of those tips for making Family Feud questions here.

💻 TECH TIP 💻

🧑🏻‍👧🏽‍👦🏿 Get student small group work RIGHT with Grouper

You have students all over the board on their last standardized test scores.

Some speak English as their native language; others don’t.

And there are a few students that should NEVER be in the same group together.

How do you manage it all?

That’s where you need Grouper (grouper.school) … the FREE app you’ll only use for 30 seconds at a time that makes teacher life simpler.

Grouper sorts students into groups based on any kind of data you provide — gender, language, personality, data from student surveys, standardized test scores, even scores on your weekly vocab quiz.

If you don’t like the groups, just have Grouper sort them again.

We wrote about Grouper in our recent post: 10 ways to manage group work in the classroom

Get a free Grouper account and get started making better student small groups.

👋 How we can help

There are even more ways I can support you in the important work you do in education:

1. Read one of my six books about meaningful teaching with tech.

2. Take one of our online courses about practical and popular topics in education.

3. Bring me to your school, district or event to speak. I love working with educators!