Every fourth Monday of the month our house does a “fun night.” It is an evening to eat together, spend time with one another, and get to know each other better. After our routine check-ins and house meeting, we decided to play a guessing game called “Fishbowl” that I learned with my extended family a few Christmases ago. It goes like this:

Everyone sits around in a circle. It’s helpful to have even numbers, as the group is split into two teams. Individuals should sit every-other, so no one is sitting next to anyone else on her team. Make sure to name the teams as well, for good measure. (We were “Team #1” and “The Better Team.”)

Next, cut up pieces of paper so they become smaller pieces of paper. One inch by one inch is good enough. Just make sure they are all roughly the same size. And make sure there are enough for everyone to have multiple pieces of paper. (We each had 5, but that seemed to be too few, so bring it up to 7 or 8 each.)

Once every person has a stack of mini-papers, have every person write a noun on each piece of paper. These nouns should be recognizable by every person in the group. For instance, if you write down your Great Aunt Glinda, chances are everyone in the group is not going to know who that is (unless they are your family on the same side as Glinda). But everyone in your group should know Abraham Lincoln. So write Abe down and leave Glinda out of it. These papers should be folded in half and placed into a fishbowl (thus the game’s name) or another container device. (We used a mixing bowl, so really our game should be called “Mixing Bowl” rather than “Fishbowl,” but we aren’t too picky.)

Now the game begins!

The object of the game is to guess as many of the nouns as possible for your team. This is done in three rounds:

Round 1: CatchPhrase Style – One person picks out the pieces of paper, one at a time, and describes the noun to her teammates. Her teammates must guess as many of the words as possible within a one minute time frame. If the team guesses the noun correctly, the piece of paper is taken out of the fishbowl and set on the table. If the team has a difficult time guessing, the paper may be placed back into the bowl (though we limited this to once a turn, otherwise people can just pick the easy nouns). Once the minute is up, the bowl gets passed onto the next person (who should be from the opposing team) and then it is their turn to guess for a minute. This continues on until all the nouns on the paper have been guessed. Each team adds up how many nouns they got, puts all the papers back into the fishbowl and it’s off to…

Round 2: Charades Style – This round is very similar to the first round in that each team has a minute to guess as many nouns as possible and the bowl is passed from team to team. However, instead of describing the noun, players act out the word. In some cases this is easy (moonwalking for “Michael Jackson”) and in others it is not so easy (what to do for “smoothie?”). Everyone has already been made aware of all of the nouns in Round 1, so sometimes this round actually goes more quickly. When all the papers have been removed from the bowl and the points added up, it’s time to start…

Round 3: One Word Clues – Again, this round is the same as the previous two but instead of describing or acting, only one word can be used to hint at the noun. (This includes if a player says, “crap!” or “um…” before stating her word.) It may seem difficult but because all the players have heard the words twice before this round can actually go quite quickly. Once all the nouns have been guessed, you can stop and tally up the scores to declare a winning team. Or, you can go onto the bonus round…

Round 4: Noises – This round is basically the same as all the ones before it, though the words are not described, acted out, or given in one word hints. In this round only noises may be used to describe each noun. This may not sound difficult, but try to sound out “flower” or “Fireball whiskey” and tell me how it goes. To make this round more honest, the team that is guessing must also cover their eyes, so as not to see any inadvertent gestures made by the team member trying to sound out the noun. Keep playing, minute by minute, until all the pieces of paper are gone.

After all three (or four, for the more involved players) rounds are completed, tear up the score because “we all win!” (declares Bethany). And really, this is true.

Tonight our community spent a good hour plus together, no cell phones, no computers, no distractions. We laughed throughout the game, encouraged one another, and were able to enjoy each other’s company and just be silly. It was a very fun night, indeed.

(Written by Kat)

Do you have any questions about how this game is played? Do you have a suggestion for another game we should try? Write a comment in the box below!