Apple to Apples Word Association Card Game

These cards can be used to play a game similar to Apples and Apples for low level ESL students (however upper level students enjoy this game as well so I’ve added another set of adjectives for high level students). Before you play the game you will need to print and cut (better of card paper) one set of nouns and one set of adjectives. There is a set of adjectives for low-level students and a second set for high level students (I wouldn’t recommend mixing these sets).

To play:

• Give each student 5 noun cards
• One student is the judge. They pick an adjective card and read it to the class.
• All of the other students will choose one of their noun cards that they think the adjective describes.
• It’s important to to explain to students that they can also be funny (EX: if the adjective is delicious but they don’t have any food cards, they can play a monkey to create “delicious monkey”)
• The student will give their cards to the judge face down.
• The judge reads the cards aloud (EX: delicious pizza, delicious monkey, delicious milk…) and choose the card that they like the most. It can be one that makes them laugh or one they think fits the adjective well.
• The student they choose gets to keep the adjective card as their point.
• Now the next student is the judge and read an adjective card aloud.
• The game continues like this until you use all of the adjective cards or you’re out of time. The winner is the student with the most adjective cards.
• Make sure each student has 5 noun cards at a time so the teacher may need to keep reshuffling the nouns.

I hope your students enjoy it!