Here is the Answer— . What is the Question?

The Basics:

Place players in groups of 3 or 4. The teacher decides on a word, and says “The answer is ______, What is the Question?” and the groups have a limited time (4 min.?) to provide as many questions they can come up with that would have that word as the answer (or a possible answer). Score the event by going around to each group and have them read out their responses. Each group gets one point for each answer that none of the other groups have.

In the Classroom:

  • This is a fun activity to get kids thinking. Coming up with questions shifts the perspective and opens up new ways of thinking.

  • Questions will range from concrete to abstract and from silly to profound. Avoid negative judgement, any answer that is true works. Challenges to borderline responses can inspire interesting conversations!

Curriculum Connections:

  • This game can be played with any words. Simple, everyday words like “Pizza” or “Books” or “Football” can generate some amazing questions! It becomes a great way to fill an extra ten minutes of unplanned time.

  • Using random, simple words makes this game a great warm-up for a group activity that would need them to think together. We often think we don’t have time for this kind of exercise, but getting kids into the right frame of mind pays dividends later!

  • VOCABULARY! Throwing in a few vocab words makes this game very interesting. Saying things like: The Constitution is the answer. What is the question?” or “Photosynthesis is the answer. What is the question?” can lead to students having intense conversations about the curriculum and give teachers the opportunity to evaluate learning in a deep and meaningful way.

Attribution:

I found this activity in a book called Team Challenges by Kris Bordessa. Kris was inspired to write it while working with her Destination Imagination team. DI is a creative problem solving group work competition and she was looking for resources that would help her engage groups of kids to think creatively. She could not find exactly what she was looking for, so she made her own! (Click on the title to find the link to the book!)