MAD ABOUT MAD LIBS
By some grace, I managed to miss sentence diagramming and other tedious grammar and syntax exercises in school. Otherwise, I would have probably come to hate writing and wouldn't be doing it now. But thanks to Mad Libs, I know the difference between an adverb and an adjective, pretty well off the top of my head.
Mad Libs are stories with blank spaces where some words have been left out. Beneath each blank is a notation indicating what sort of word should be there: noun, verb, adverb, adjective, period of time, exclamation, etc. One person reads the blanks and asks the other or others for words to plug in. Since the other player(s) aren't reading the story and don't know what it is about, the words they provide are usually out of context-which makes the finished story funny.
My children love Mad Libs. They have a big pad that includes several of the littler books in one. It goes on car trips, comes out when the kids are "bored," and when their friends visit. One of my daughters' favorite ways to play is to use theme-related words, like those pertaining to homeschooling, for instance, so every noun, verb, etc. called for is as homeschooling-related as possible. We might get something like this: "There once was an unschooling mummy at the Museum of homeschoolers. At night, when no one was there, he liked learn around imaginatively. The guard began to deschool when he saw this educational ball of bandages coming towards him."
We also like to write lightly in the Mad Libs pad, so the pages can be reused with a little erasing. Usually, though, if there's a particularly appealing passage, the kids leave the penciled-in words for future reading.
It's fun to make up your own Mad Libs-like word games, too. We make them for special occasions like birthdays. These wacky stories appeal to almost everyone, and they make inexpensive entertainment for all ages. Even pre-reading children can enjoy taking turns if they have some help from an older sibling or adult. Pads of Mad Libs are available at most bookstores. Here are some places to try them out online:
Funbrain Wacky Tales -Choose from 20 brief stories "started" by the fictitious Dictionary Jenkins. Fill in the blanks on-line and see the results online.
Kids Place Wacky Web Tails - Gobs of stories-many submitted by children-to complete on-line.
How to Write Your Own Mad Libs
Mad Libs.org - Eight stories to choose from, including Hamlet's third soliloquy and the lyrics to "Eleanor Rigby."
How to Add Mad Libs to Your Web Page - A web wonk's code for creating a Mad Libs feature on your site.
Personalized Stories and Mad Libs
(c) 2003, 2005 Shay Seaborne. All rights reserved. Originally published in the August 2003 issue of HEM's Online Newsletter