

Braille
Word Tower
How many letters will you need to guess the secret word?
The snowman is melting.
Hurry! Find the word that will save him from disappearing.
To guess your partner’s secret word, you’re allowed several attempts. But at every wrong guess, the snowman melts a little bit more!…
To improve spelling and word-deciphering.
To practise literacy skills.
So, Skye, can you think of a word?
Write it using your alphabet base plate
and write it at the bottom.
But don’t tell us.
I think we have a word.
How many letters?
Six letters in the word.
First, I have to give Skye the snowman.
Okay.
And be careful
he is not melting too fast.
So first question.
-Skye,
is there a letter ‘D’ in your word?
-No.
So you just take one brick
and you place it on the table.
That’s it. Second question.
Is there a letter ‘A’?
No.
Skye, remember to remove
one more letter.
From here?
-Yes.
Is there a letter ‘E’?
-Yes.
How many? And where?
One ‘E’.
It’s the fifth letter.
Is there a letter ‘F’ in your word?
-Yes.
One ‘F’ at the very beginning of the word.
So that goes in there… and that goes in there.
Is there a letter ‘T’ in your word?
-No.
Is there…
A letter ‘I’?
No.
Please stop being terrifying.
Oh, dear.
The snowman’s almost dead.
Oh!
-Nearly dead.
Is there a letter ‘O’?
Yes.
Where and how many?
Just one?
One ‘O’.
It’s one, two, three.
Okay, I will take a gamble.
Is there a letter ‘L’?
Yes.
One ‘L’,
And it is the second letter.
Is there a letter ‘R’?
Yes.
Where and how many?
At the very end of the word.
And it is one ‘R’.
Ah! Is there a ‘W’?
-Yes!
The word is ‘flower’.
Yes, it is.
I did it!
And just in time.
Because the snowman
had only three guesses.
So just in time. That was great.
4 baseplates (1 blank and 1 alphabet for each player)
All the letter-bricks.
8 equal-sign bricks
8 other math symbol bricks
1 bowl
1
Player 1 builds a pile (the snowman) with the 8 math-bricks and chooses a secret word (max 8 letters).
They write it on the baseplate and tell player 2 the number of letters in the word.
Player 2 takes the same number of equal sign-bricks and places one brick per letter to be found.
2
Player 2 guesses a letter and removes it from the alphabet. If the answer is no, player 2 places the letter in the bowl, Player 1 removes a brick from the snowman.
3
Player 2 tries another letter.
If the answer is yes, player 1 indicates the number and placement of the letter in the word.
Player 2 places the letters on top of the corresponding equal-sign bricks.
Play continues until player 2 guesses the word … or the snowman melts completely.
Increase the number of players by taking turns to guess the word.
Vary the height of the snowman.
Ask player 1: What is your strategy for choosing a secret word?
Suggest player 2 begins guessing vowels first.
Player 1 helps with hints: It’s an animal, a vegetable, a famous character.
This activity is adapted from an original game called ‘Hangman’.