Mettius Fufetius in rounds

Mettius Fufetius is a re-do of the Spanish game Pancho Comancho. In Pancho Comancho, five or so students are called to the front of the room and given white boards. You can do this with any structure you want, so imagine we're doing it with adjectives. On one is written purple, on one 'tall,' on one 'angry,' on one 'sick' and on one 'sleepy.' The teacher asks a question of one student: Is Pancho Comancho tall? and starts a timer (I usually do one minute for the first round). That student says, "No, Pancho Comancho is not tall; Pancho Comancho is ________ (any of the other adjectives on any other board)." It then becomes a game of verbal hot potato. The student speaking when the timer goes off has to sit down.




I play Mettius Fufetius instead, which gives me the opportunity to tell them the story of Mettius Fufetius every single time, which they love, since it involves tying a guy to chariots and then driving in opposite directions.

After the first round, I let each player choose whom they want to replace them, and then ask individual students what they want written on each board. As they get more upper level, they like to write more complicated things (adding direct objects, adjectives, specifications, etc).

After round two, I put them in groups of four or five, and let them have their own white boards, and run the whole class on one timer. After each round, I send the losers of the round to form their own groups, so nobody ever has nothing to do. We have, a couple times, accidentally played this for an entire class period. Because they're constantly switching groups, it gives them exposure to the same structure with many, many different words/contexts. You can do this with quite complicated structures, too - my fours have been doing this with indirect statements (fama fert mettium fufetium ______________.).