Works with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or your own local model: paste this prompt and your AI will co-facilitate this exercise with you.

Help me prepare and run the exercise below. First ask for my participant count, time, setting, access needs and intended result. Check these against the stated limits. Use the supplied rules and materials. Explain any proposed changes before using them, and label them as adaptations. Do not invent source claims or require personal disclosure. Give me one step at a time when I say start. I manage the people, physical activity and clock; do not claim to observe the room. Ask me what happened before choosing a next step.

Reference revision: b7fb06daa8034dabc2daac653ac3e3bace2ba03a6b5951c56d5d7e980466f0c2

# Take Two

Small teams race to form an interlocking crossword grid using letter tiles or cards. When any team uses all their letters, they shout 'Take Two,' forcing every team to draw two more letters and remodel their grid.

**Time:** 20 minutes. Public source indicates 15 to 30 minutes; 20 minutes allows setup, two quick rounds of play, and a brief debrief.
**People:** 4 to 24. Teams of 2 to 4 people working at separate tables around a central letter pool.

## Choose this exercise

**Purpose:** Practice collaborative problem-solving, real-time adaptation, and team decision-making under changing constraints.
**Use it when:** Use during a team retreat or workshop energizer when you want a fast, hands-on collaboration challenge that demands quick adjustments to unexpected changes.
**Skip it when:** Skip when participants have highly disparate language proficiencies, or when the group contains participants with dyslexia or visual impairments who prefer to avoid competitive spelling tasks.

## Materials and tools

- 1 set of 100 to 144 alphabet tiles or printed letter cards (standard Scrabble or Bananagrams distribution works well)
- 1 flat table per team
- 1 central table or floor space for the shared draw pile

## Before participants arrive

1. Spread all letter cards or tiles face-down in a central pile accessible to all teams.
2. Ensure each team has clear table space to lay out an expanding crossword grid.
3. If playing remotely, configure an interactive digital whiteboard with duplicate pools of virtual letter tiles per breakout room.

## Say this to open

Welcome. In this game, your team will build a single, interconnected word grid using letter tiles, like an open crossword puzzle. You will start with seven letters. At any moment, you can dismantle or rearrange your grid. The catch is speed: the first team to connect all of their letters yells 'Take Two!' When that happens, every team in the room must immediately draw two new letters from the center. You must incorporate those new letters into your grid. We keep going until the central pile runs out.

## How to run it

### 1. Form teams and draw initial tiles (3 minutes)

Divide participants into teams of 2 to 4. One representative from each team walks to the central table and draws 7 face-down letters. Teams return to their tables and wait for the starting signal.

### 2. Build grids and call Take Two (10 minutes)

Say 'Go.' Teams flip their letters face-up and assemble them into a valid crossword where all words intersect. Standard word rules apply: no proper nouns, abbreviations, or acronyms. As soon as any team uses every letter currently in their hand, that team shouts 'Take Two!' Every team immediately draws two new face-down letters from the center. Teams rearrange, extend, or rebuild their words to incorporate the additions. Play continues until the center pool is exhausted, or run a 10-minute timer cap.

### 3. Tour other grids and verify words (3 minutes)

Stop play when the center tiles run out and one team uses their full hand, or when time expires. Give teams 2 minutes to walk around and inspect the grids created by neighboring groups. Allow lighthearted challenges on disputed words.

### 4. Reflect on adaptation and strategy (4 minutes)

Gather the full room. Ask participants to share how their teams responded each time new letters forced them to alter an existing plan. Take 2 to 3 observations from the floor.


## Debrief questions

- What happened to your team's strategy when another group shouted 'Take Two' just as you were finishing?
- Did your group prefer to build long complex words or short, flexible words? Why?
- How did you decide whether to tweak an existing word or scrap the entire layout to start fresh?

**Finished output:** An interconnected letter grid constructed by each small team, completed under dynamic time constraints.

## Remote

Use a digital whiteboard (like Miro or Mural) with breakout rooms. Place a central locked bank of randomized digital letter cards on a main board. Assign each team an isolated canvas area. When one team types 'TAKE TWO' in the main chat, the facilitator duplicates two new virtual tiles onto each team's canvas. Teams manipulate digital tiles to build their interlocking grid.

## Hybrid

Hybrid play requires co-located teams or fully separate digital boards. If mixing remote and in-person players, pair each remote participant with an in-person partner using a dedicated laptop camera focused on the table grid. The remote partner acts as the word strategist and dictionary checker while the in-person partner moves physical tiles.

## Access and participation choices

- Offer an official word list or allow teams to use a shared dictionary lookup tool if spelling anxiety is present.
- Participants may choose roles: tile mover, anagram finder, or dictionary verifier. Anyone may opt to observe without actively competing.

## If the session gets stuck

**A team gets stuck with unplayable consonants (like Q, X, or Z) and falls far behind.**

Allow an optional 'Dump' house rule: a team may discard 1 difficult letter back to the center pile face-down and draw 2 new letters in exchange.

**Teams disagree over whether a submitted word is acceptable (e.g., slang or regional terms).**

Designate a standard mobile dictionary app before starting. If challenged, a word must appear in the app to remain valid.


## Terms used here

- Interconnected words: Words arranged in a crisscross or crossword formation where every word shares at least one common letter with another word.
- Take Two: The call made by any team that successfully uses all current tiles, triggering an immediate two-letter draw for all teams in the game.

## Sources and adaptation

Observed on Playmeo, where it is attributed to Mark Collard. The mechanic shares standard rules with the commercial tabletop game Bananagrams.

Public source material from Playmeo documents the core mechanic: small groups race to build independent crossword grids with alphabet tiles, shouting 'Take Two' to force everyone to draw additional letters. UWT structured the activity into clear time-boxed phases, provided standard dictionary guidelines, supplied troubleshooting for difficult letters, and added hybrid/remote adaptations.

[Playmeo](https://www.playmeo.com/activities/fun-team-building-puzzles/take-two)

[Playmeo](https://www.playmeo.com/activities/fun-team-building-puzzles/take-two/)

Current run sheet: https://unitedwetransform.com/exercises/competitive-team-game-to-build-word-skills-strategy-take-two/