Once Upon A Time

Name of Group Game: Once Upon A Time
Type:
Indoor

Number:
Medium Group (14 – 19 people) to
Large Group (20 + people)
Age: Elementary School (3rd graders and above)

Time: 15 – 20 minutes

Summary: Create epic stories as a creative writing exercise.

Goal: Use creative writing skills to create funny stories.

Preparation:
– Best played in a classroom

How to Play the Once Upon A Time Game:
1. Have each person bring out a piece of paper and a pencil. Tell everyone to write their names at the top. Set appropriate guidelines: No one can write about anything inappropriate or about anyone else in the school. Then, have them write and complete the sentence, “Once upon a time”, and add two more sentences to start a story.

2. After three minutes, have everyone hand their papers to the person behind them (the last person in the row to hand their papers to the first person in the row). Have everyone write three additional sentences. After three minutes, ask them to hand the papers to the person behind them again. Repeat this step until the papers reach their original authors.

3. Have the original people end their stories with three final sentences and ask a couple of people to read their stories aloud.

Variation:
You can set the themes of the story at the beginning of the game, to make things more interesting. For example: Video game characters, a family trip to Disneyland, or super heroes.

Fun Fact: 
Tim Burton created a fun way to integrate this game concept and Twitter. He started with a sentence, selected tweets and published them on his website. Read the hilarious story here: http://www.burtonstory.com/connect.php .

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