Unplugged Stories: Make Your Own Mad Libs

What You Will Need

• Sheet of paper
• Pen or pencil
• Two or more family members

Activity

1. The first step to making your own Mad Libs is coming up with a (very) short story. Your inspiration can come from anywhere (for example, a holiday theme, a song you know, a wedding, a birthday, or even an everyday routine). Think of places or situations in which you might never see a smartphone or laptop (see the example below).
2. Parents or guardians, help your child write a few sentences for their story, or you can write the story for them, and they can provide the words to fill it in. Don’t worry if they’re not funny at first; they will be when you play the game later on.
3. Choose between one and three words to take out of each sentence. Which words should you erase? Read your text once saying “blank” instead of some words. For example, “Steven closed the big, blue BLANK.” If funny ideas start to pop into your head, you’ll know that’s a good word to erase.
4. Erase the words you’ve chosen, and replace them with a blank line.
5. For each word you erase, write the type of word under the blank line (i.e, noun, verb, adverb, adjective). If your child is still learning the parts of speech, select the type of words they know (e.g., nouns and verbs) and give them some examples of nouns and verbs, or use descriptors like “animal,” “color,” and “something you can pick up.”
6. Try this! For one noun (thing), instead of writing “NOUN,” write “TYPE OF SCREEN DEVICE” under the blank line. See our example below. Screen devices include things like laptops, smartphones, and tablets.
7. Ask your child to give you a word for each blank space in the story. Replace the old words with new words that they give you.
8. Read aloud the new version of your story or song.

Talk About It

Here are some things you can ask your child as you do this activity:

• Was it hard to come up with words to fill in the story?
• How do new words change the story?
• If there was a screen device in your story, did it make your story silly, weird, boring, fun, or something else? What was your story like with a screen device in it?