Daily Archives: 15 December 2022

In a Wink: Create Taboo Cards Magically

General

It feels downright unfair that I figured out how to make the quickest taboo cards-easily, faster than you think, no-tech knowledge required, the kind you want to create again and again — and you’re only finding out about it today.

Are you ready for some magic? Here we go!!!

Creating the Cards

  • Go to https://vocab.today/worksheets/taboo/. It’s free, and you don’t even need to register.
  • Enter the word you want to target in the panel on the left. Let’s say, the word is “student”. Click enter and see how quickly the cards are generated with the taboo words, ie.the forbidden words.  Continue in the same fashion with all the words you want students to guess.
  • Save them, or print them, straight away; right click of your mouse and choose the option Print. Now you have two options:
  1. Print them straight away
  2. Save the cards as a PDF for future print.

IMOORTANT: If it doesn’t work with the browser you are using (Chrome), try using another one (Firefox).  You also need to bear in mind that it doesn’t work with compounds, ie, it will work with “arrogant” but not with “laid-back”.

How to play Taboo.

  • Divide the class into even groups of 4-6 students and ask them to choose a Team name.
  • Place a set of cards face down on the table.
  • A team member (the clue-giver) is chosen from the first group and brought to the front of the class.
  • The clue-giver takes the first card and describes it to their teammates (the guessers)  without using any of the taboo (forbidden)  words in it. If the guessers guess, they score a point for their team, Then, the card is set aside and the clue-giver picks another one to describe.
  • If the clue-giver says a forbidden word, the other team scores a point.
  • Buzzer the timer after 90 seconds, count the number of words correctly identified and list them beneath the team name on the board.
  • When time runs out, another team chooses a player to continue the game.

TRICK: If you’d rather use digital Flipcards, as I have many times in the past, you can still make good use of this tool by copy/pasting the suggested taboo words into the Flipcards. This will allow you to use the tool in a way that is convenient and efficient for you.