Forming multicultural teams of four students with the card game, Happy Families

1. Buy a pack of Happy Families. You can instance opt for Amazon but any other outlet will do.
2. Shuffle the cards and choose as many full four-member families as you wish to have teams. Each pack contains 48 cards that represent 12 families that are each composed of four family members.
3. You can let the students pick one card haphazardly from the pack pointing out that they may be of wrong sex but at this point it does not matter since it is the family name that counts. Alternatively, you can deal the cards and not let students choose if you wish to save time.
4. Next students find their families and teams have been formed. Alternatively, if it fits your pedagogical model and has been explained well enough, you may ask the students to trade cards to have a somewhat equal number of females and males, nationalities or other traits in each team.
5. The game can be carried on by letting students find in their newly established teams five things in common. These should be other than appearance or clothing related and something that does not meet the eye.