Hedbanz for Speech Therapy
Using Hedbanz for Speech Therapy is great fun for school-aged kids and is ideal for learning to ask and answer questions.
Number of Players: 2 – 6
Ages: The box says 7 year and up. You may need to adapt the game for kids who have delays or are just developing their questioning skills, by lengthening each turn or getting rid of the timer altogether and giving simple clues to get them started on the right track.
Target: Teaches basic vocabulary and the cards can be used for simple categorization of food, animals, and furniture. Great for teaching kids to ask and answer questions, to get creative with their questioning and also teaches simple gaming strategy.
How the Game is Played: I’m sure you have played it before but just in case, here is how it goes…
Each player clips one of the plastic headbands onto their head, with a slot facing forwards to place the playing card in. Each player takes 3 counters with the object of the game to be the first to get rid of all of your counters.
Each player is dealt a playing card face down – no peeking! They place the card into the slot on their headband so everyone else can see it. I usually find kids need help with this part, especially as they may feel tempted to cheat.
The game starts with the egg timer is turned over. The player has a minute to ask many questions as they can to try and guess “What am I?” There are help cards with ideas for questions to ask, such as “Am I a pet?” “What would you eat me with?” and “How tall am I?”
Once they are sure of their guess, the player can ask “Am I a …?” and if they are correct, they get rid of a counter and take another card. Those quick off the mark could guess several cards inside the minute they have to play.
Once the timer has run out, play passes to the next student. The winner is the first person to get rid of all three counters.
Using Hedbanz for Speech Therapy
Asking Questions
I have yet to find a game that is as motivating as this one for teaching kids to ask questions. Guess Who is a great game for younger children but it tends to get a little repetitive and lacks the range of question practice that is possible with Hedbanz.
Kids need to ask all types of questions in order to be able to guess the card so they will learn to use “who, what, why, where, when and how” questions as well as other question forms such as “Did I…?” , “Have I…?” etc.
Vocabulary Development and Simple Categories: The playing cards in my set are nicely illustrated and contain pictures of familiar everyday items and so I sometimes use them as a simple vocabulary teaching or category sorting task.
It is easy to use them to sort into their intended 3 categories of food, animals and household items but you can also drill down further into each category and have your students pick out the zoo animals separate from the farm animals. You can have them find you “food that grows on trees” or “items we keep in the garage”.
The illustrations provided with this game give endless possibilities for learning fun, even for those who are not able to keep up with the fast pace of the regular game yet so it is a purchase that is will keep the kids amused for years to come.
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