The Letter Collector

In this activity, participants are to collect as many letters as possible within a specified timeframe. Once time is up, they use the letters they have collected to form words. This part can also be time-limited, or participants can be allowed to continue until they have made as many words as they can.

Tip: Use laminated letters, letter blocks, or Scrabble tiles.

Preparations

The letters are placed in the area before the start. This can be done in various ways:

• placed openly in a clear area
• hidden in a more cluttered environment, for example

There should be many letters available, so that participants can spend several minutes searching and collecting. Participants line up behind a starting line and wait for the start signal.

How to Play

At the start signal, all participants run out simultaneously to collect letters. They must follow these rules:

• They can only collect one letter at a time.
• Each letter must be brought back to the team area before they can run out again.
• The activity continues this way until time is up.

When time is up, the teams gather their letters and move on to the next part of the task: forming words. Here, you can choose between giving a new, fixed timeframe for word building, or letting the teams continue until they can no longer form any more words.

The winner can be the team that:

• creates the most words
• uses the most letters
• meets other criteria agreed upon in advance

Tasks can be varied according to age and level. Examples of categories:

• proper nouns
• animals living in the forest
• tree species
• other theme-based words (for example, «kitchen items», «words about winter», etc.)

Variations

The activity can easily be adapted for different groups:

• done individually or in teams
• younger children can work as a group and collaborate on the task
• letters can be replaced with numbers if you want to practice math, for example by:
• creating equations
• combining number sequences

For the youngest or less experienced, simple and concrete categories can be chosen, gradually increasing both difficulty and academic content as participants become more confident and experienced.