Salad Bowl Game – Perfect Game Night Fun
Supplies: Salad Bowl, pens, strips of paper to write on, timer of some sort (phone works well), recommend for groups of 8 – 20

Salad Bowl Game - Game Night GamesWhile visiting with friends they said, “Let’s Play Salad Bowl.” I was like, Salad Bowl? And they said it was a game where you place words into a salad bowl and then pull out terms from the bowl to play the game.

One great thing about this game is that it is very easy diy game night game that takes between 30 and 60 minutes but provides lots of laughter and for some a little frustration.

Another plus about the Salad Bowl game is it can work for any age, as the words placed in the bowl come from the players. This allows the game to be adapted to the vocabulary of tweens, teens and adults.

Salad Bowl Game Prep
1. Randomly select a letter from the alphabet.
a. You can ask someone to random name a letter before the game is announce or
b. Cut up pieces of paper with each letter on it, place in a bowl and randomly select one or
c. Choose someone playing the game and have them roll a pair of dice and whatever the number of the dice are you count the letters in their name and use that letter.  So if Karen rolls a 3, then K, A, “R” (R is the letter used).
– Tip: Recommend not using Q, U, V, W, X, Y and Z as they prove to be a little difficult.
You can also use Charades card packs, but they are a little more difficult.

2. Once a letter is selected everyone is given 4 pieces of paper and must write down 4 words (nouns, verbs, adjectives) that start with your selected letter. The goal is a diverse group of words starting with that letter. If kids play the game and c or d comes up, then you might want to say no one can use cat or dog as these are very popular terms for kids under the age of 10.

3. Once everyone has come up with their words, they fold their slip of paper in half and the words are then placed in the bowl.

4. Selecting Teams: After the words are in the bowl, you randomly select team. While the game can be played with 2 people per team, we recommend teams of 3, 4 and 5 players per team and 3 or 4 teams. The easiest way we have found to pick teams is by placing numbers in a bowl and randomly have guests pick a number, then guests getting the same number are then on the same team. Have each team sit together and get ready to play.



How to Play Salad Bowl Game
There are Three Rounds in the Salad Bowl Game and each round is played in the same basic manner.

To Start the First Team selects one person to do the task and the other team members try to guess the word on the paper. Once the word is guessed, another word is selected from the bowl, this continues until their turn is up. Note: Each turn is 1 minute.  Once their turn has ended, count up all the words that were correctly guessed and that is their score. 1 point for every correct word.

Once Team 1 finishes, then Team 2 goes, then Team 3 and so on. This continues until all the words in the salad bowl are guessed for Round 1.

Note when a Team finishes the last word in a Round, pause the timer add all the terms back into the bowl move to the next Round, restart the timer and have that Team complete their turn. Example For Clarification: If Team 2 Finishes off the last word in Round 1 with 30 seconds left, pause the timer, add the all the words back into the bowl, restart the timer with 30 seconds left and have Team 2 finish their turn. If this happens be sure to count all the terms from both Rounds on their point total.

Play all Three Rounds and the Team with the Highest numbers of points at the end of the three Rounds Wins.

The 3 Rounds in the Salad Bowl Game are

Round 1: Verbal Clues
 – The Player selects a word and gives verbal clues (words) as to what the word on the piece of paper is. The Player cannot say the word, nor can they use a part of that word as a clue. Only once a word is correctly guessed can they then select another word from the bowl.

Round 2: Charades – The Player selects a word from the bowl and must act out the word until it is guessed without talking. Once correctly guessed, they select a new word and continue.

Round 3: One Word Clue – For this round a player faces away from their team, so they cannot give any facial expressions and must select a word and then give 1 clue to get his teammates to guess the correct word. Please note that once 1 word is said they cannot say another word until it is guessed. Saying “umm,” “the,” “crap” and “oh” all count as a word, so speak carefully. Please note the person may repeat the clue word so if they say “apple” they can say “apple” again without a penalty. Once the clue is guess move on to the next term.

Salad Bowl Round Variation

Substitute Pictionary / Drawing for Charades – Change it up by going with Drawing the word instead of acting it out. Based on our experience, drawing each word is more difficult and adds about 10 more minutes to the game. It is helpful (but not necessary) to have a dry eraser board and an easel for this so everyone can see.

What we enjoy about this game night game is that the words and ideas come from your guests so the game changes based on who is in attendance and with the focus on one letter the game is never the same twice. The Salad Bowl Game tends to run between 30 – 60 minutes.

Thanks
Brian, Matt & Amber – Winter Park, FL