Fun with Character: The “Oh No” Game

Arrange the students in groups of 5 – 7 sitting in a circle. Pick a place in the circle to start. The first person makes up a bad luck scenario and shares it with the group. The scenario starts with “Oh, no!” For example: “Oh, No! The car won’t start”. Everyone in the group tries to make up a good result that could come out of that. This could also be explained as the silver lining. Their responses start with “Oh, well.” for example: “Oh, well, You’ll save money not going to the mall”. The group should try to come up with as many ‘Oh well’s for each ‘Oh no’ as they can. When the groups are finished, ask them to share some of the more humorous answers with the class. When finished, ask the students how easy it was to look for the silver lining. Try to use the Oh no/Oh well language in the classroom when bad luck occurs and try to turn around the situation.

To process the activity, ask these or similar questions:

• Was it hard to make up examples of ‘Oh no’?

• Was it easier or harder to make up examples of the ‘Oh well’s?

• When an “Oh well’ was funny, did it make the Oh no seem less disastrous?

• The next time you run into a real ‘Oh no’ will you think of some ‘Oh well’s?