DIY: Madlibs

who: J1 and J2
where: lounging around the house
when: 10 minutes before violin lessons
what: a language game
*warning* this episode contains some little boy humor that not everyone will find appropriate.

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A picture of something that is not yet, but will eventually become,
an example of my sons' current favorite double duty noun/verb.

Mad Libs - the background
I enjoyed MadLibs as a kid, so I introduced them to the family. Instead of taking the easy route (buying some) or the easier route (downloading from the web) or the easiest route (getting an app), I had the great idea to make my own!  The idea was to take basic sentences, whatever their original context, take out some of the key words, then ask for substitutes from the same parts of speech.

Of course, this also required teaching a little grammar along the way:
Nouns: person, place or thing (also animal or idea, according to wikipedia).
Verbs: action words (also occurrence or state of being, again, wiki)
Adjectives: words that describe nouns (ha, I got this one!)

I decided these three were enough to get us started.

Our Libs
The first try, this came from the literary classic, Spot's Treasure Hunt:

Daddy has planned a thin event for Mommy.  Run and jump with the pillows in every temple to help Mommy and her playdough search for hidden earth.

If you guessed that the yellow highlight is for the words (or phrases) we added, then give yourself a gold star.

The next one, direct from the back of Origami Paper Planes:

The poop and snails are happy to run you on board. The fleet consists of 126 testicles and other mad kidneys.

Finally, from the front page of the BBC news webpage:

Feces are running near the south-eastern Ukrainian city of London.  Earlier, the blue and sad presidents shook as the saliva was pooping.

You can see there is a bit of a theme to the word selection...

Did they love it?
After our third round, J1 asked suspiciously: "Daddy, is this the game?"

P thought that was hilarious.

Oh well.