Listen and Learn: Guess My Valentine Game

Play Guess My Valentine just like any other Guess Who Game. This is a classic holiday game we play in Auditory Verbal Therapy Center of Wheaton by switching up the game cards from Jack-O-Lantern to Snowmen depending on the season.

Number of players: 2 or as a team of parent and child

Cards: 2 matching sets of the 9 heart cards, laminated

Draw 2 sets of 9 different Valentine Heart Game Cards

How to play: Each player/team has a one set of 9 different heart cards. One player draws a card from one of the decks of hearts. The player does not show the card to the other their opponent. Guess My Valentine game begins when the OTHER player asks questions about physical features of the face on their opponent’s hidden card.

Does your Valentine have a heart shaped nose?

Does your heart have sleepy eyes?

Does your heart have a frown?

Is your heart missing his nose?

Is your heart number three?

Is your Valentine happy? 

All questions must be answerable with 'yes' or 'no'. 

If the answer is no, then turn over all the hearts that answer no.

If the answer is yes, the hearts with _______  stay face up.

The players keep asking questions to narrow down the choices until he knows and is ready to guess the opponent’s Valentine card. 

By modeling, children learn how to determine which hearts get turned down and which remain up.

I use Guess My Valentine with a range of ages and stages of listeners beginning with preschoolers. Playing the game is a natural two-way communication activity involving listening and responding as well as logical and deductive reasoning. It lends itself to auditory memory and processing plus a variety of listening and spoken language target areas depending on the child needs such as:

• vocabulary expansion

• critical elements

• categories

• asking questions

• grammatical structures

• use of clear speech

• turn taking

• listening to the other players

• Is/Does questions

• Using negative and contractions 

• Using the proper use of has and have
• 
  

Additional Thoughts and Suggestions

    When using Guess My Valentine, model and expect  the child to ask all questions with:

    Is your heart _____?

    Does your heart have _____?

They must answer using full sentences/phrases, not a simple yes or no.  There are four typical forms for an answer:

    Yes, my heart has _____.

    No, my heart doesn’t have _____.

    Yes, my heart is _____.

    No, my heart isn't _____.


Have fun and happy Valentine's Day!