Background

Our troop's planning team was looking to come up with a new game that could played in our virtual troop zoom meeting; one that fit Baden Powell's definition of Scouting: "Scouting is a Game with a the Purpose".  The team came up with a variation of Boggle where the patrol would have to make up as many words from a set of letters as they could in a period of time.  They took that concept and asked themselves 'How can we give it a purpose?'  

This game was for our first meeting of the year and the meeting's them was 'Goal Setting'.  How could their 'letters to words' concept be used to fit into the theme and meet the objective of provide a teaching opportunity?  

They came up with a plan to run the game multiple times. Each time, adding a criteria that would lead to reflection afterward. The first round, the Scouts would be forced to work individually and have a tough challenge.  Then each following round, they would be given an instruction to add/help with the challenge.

Boggle with a Purpose

Each patrol will be sent to a break out room.

Base rules

• All patrols are given a set of letters.
• The patrol's objective is to come up with as many unique words as possible.
• Each Scout must have a minimum of 5 words for that scouts words to count toward the total.
• If a Scout has 5 minimum words, the words are used for the Patrol's total word count.
• The patrol is given 1 point for each unique word.
• Rounds are 60 seconds each.

Rounds

• Round 1: No talking
• Round 2: Each scout could submit more than three words.
• Round 3: You can help each other to get their minimum number of 5 words.
• Round 4: You can talk to each other.

Letters for each Round

You can use your own sets letters. We used a website to randomly choose letters.

• Round 1 Letters: A M P U I S O W R T L Z G X H
• Round 2 Letters: Y X K Q R T W E U N J A S F C
• Round 3 Letters: F E P I R W S G N K U J B C D
• Round 4 Letters: F L K C D A O Q N Z X I H Y E

Random Letter Generator Websites

http://projects.exeter.ac.uk/brad/boggle/braggle.htm
https://games.randomlists.com/boggle
https://randomwordgenerator.com/letter.php

Post Game Debrief

Debrief the Game by leading the entire group in a discussion using the following questions.

1. Did your patrol know the purpose or have a goal for the game?
2. How did you feel? Did your leader make you feel important and valued? Did you have the information you needed? Did you have confidence that you could succeed? Did you have any input? Were you given opportunities to grow?
3. What was your relationship with your leader? How did he or she communicate with you during the game? Was it effective? Consider listening skills, valuing group members and diversity of opinion, and mutual respect.
4. As guides were given from game to game do you feel more confident about the goal? And your ability to succeed? Did it help to have a goal and a method to complete that goal? Did it help to know that if you got stuck, you could use your other patrol mates to complete the task?
5. Did your group feel like an effective team? Did you get great results? Did you use the participation and creativity of the group? Did you effectively accomplish your task?
6. Did you feel like a winner after the game? Did you and your patrol celebrate the group’s success? What was the role of your leader in that effort?
7. Did you work hard? Did you have fun? Were you confident and enthusiastic about your task? Did you have pride in participating? Did you feel good about your patrol’s success?