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How to Play the Alphabet Game

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  1. 1
    Have the first player begin with A. The subsequent player then must name something with B; the next player something with C; and so on.
  2. 2
    Decide whether or not the items must be repeated or whether it is sufficient to simply name the next item in the alphabet. If all the items previous to the next player's term have to be named, this becomes a lot harder than simply remembering the next letter in the alphabet. As such, the memory alphabet game should be reserved for older players with good memories, while the easier version can be used for children who know their alphabet and every age up. By way of explanation:
    • If you had an alphabet game requiring the person to remember the next word only, they could hear "Apple" and then say "Banana".
    • For the game in which the player must repeat what has already been said plus their own addition, they would say: "Apple", "Banana", "Cherry", etc. This clearly gets much harder as there are 26 letters to remember! (A good one for long car trips.)
  3. 3
    Select a theme. The alphabet game works best with a theme, so that everyone's attention is focused on words that come from a particular idea. Some great themes include:
    • Shopping: "I went to the shop for an Apron"; 'I went to the shop for a Bowtie"; "I went to the shop for a Camisole"; "I went to the shop for a Denim jacket"; etc.
    • Animals: "I want to have an Ape for a pet"; "I want to have a Bee for a pet"; "I want to have a Cow for a pet"; I want to have a Deer for a pet"; etc.
    • Food: "I had Apples for dinner"; "I had Beets for dinner"; I had Chips for dinner; I had Dates for dinner"; etc.
  4. 4
    Realize that some letters are going to be hard, especially for some themes. For example, Q, X, and Z are often tricky and you might need to either exclude them or make up exceptions for using them.
  5. 5
    Award prizes. There are many ways to award prizes for the alphabet game. Some of the ways include:
    • A prize for the person who can go the longest remembering all the different things said for each letter of the alphabet (if playing the memory version)
    • A prize for the most interesting or clever items named for the letters of the alphabet
    • The fastest/most thoughtful/funniest, etc. player.

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  • Make it much harder by getting everyone to play with a backwards alphabet, starting from Z!
  • There are other variations of the alphabet game. They're all right as long as they're fun and everyone can participate.

Things You'll Need

  • Good memory
  • Knowledge of the alphabet

Article Info

Categories: Puzzles and Memory Games

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