For this game, the teacher is “going on vacation.” Students can come with them, but only if they want to do certain things. The students’ task is to guess what those things are.

However, the secret is, in each round there’s a mystery rule that only the teacher knows that links all the “approved” things they want to do together. This can be the number of letters in a word, the number of syllables, anything you choose (feel free to use the ones I’ve already provided in the game, details in the notes sections). I usually wait to explain this part of the game until after the first round to make the game more fun.

In each round, you will present the students with a question. Example: “Where do you want to go on vacation?”

Then, you will give the students a hint about the mystery rule by providing them with two example answers. Example: “Jack wants to go to Hawaii.” “Amanda wants to go to France.” (Mystery Rule = Places with 6 letters)

Each student then guesses with their own answers using the sentence. Example: “I want to go to _____.”

If their answer follows the mystery rule of that round, you can say, “You can come with me on vacation.” If it doesn’t, you can say, “Sorry, you can’t come with me on vacation.”

Students must listen carefully to each other’s answers to figure out the mystery rule for themselves.

The round ends when all or enough students have figured out the rule and can come on vacation, or time is up and you need to move on to the next round.