Hobbies And Interests
Online Games
Many word games are available online for kids to play. For example, several websites offer games that help children understand antonyms and synonyms. In one, a word comes up and is accompanied by an antonym or synonym for the word. The children decide whether the second word is the antonym or the synonym of the first word. This will help children with definitions by identifying which word means the opposite and which word means the same.
Another game is "Word Confusion." This game will have a sentence such as, "When you play a game, there is always the chance of winning." There is a blank space for the word "there," and the child is given a choice between the words "there" or "their" to fill in the blank.
Classroom Games
Spellaroo is a game that will help children identify words that are spelled incorrectly. Give children copies of completed sentences in which a word is misspelled. In each sentence, the misspelled word and another word are underlined. The children have to guess which of the underlined words is spelled wrong. The one who gets the most right wins the game.
Spelling Bees are another way for kids to work on proper spelling. Each child is given a challenging word to spell, and if he spells it correctly, he remains in the game. Anyone who misspells a word has to sit down. The winner is the last person standing.
Traveling Games
Games are a good way to keep kids distracted when driving or traveling. The rhyming game can be played with any amount of people. One person chooses a word, and everyone else has to say a word that rhymes with it. Think of as many words that rhyme as possible before someone chooses a new word.
The alphabet game is another game that can be played in the car or when traveling. One person makes up a sentence using an adjective that starts with the letter A. The next player changes that adjective to one that starts with B. Play continues until every letter in the alphabet is used. For example, the fist sentence could be "The neighbor has a very angry dog." The next person would change the adjective using the letter B and might say "The neighbor has a very beautiful dog."
Board and Paper Games
Scrabble is a long-standing word game that has been enjoyed by many children and adults alike. It's a good game for putting words together. Players start with seven letters. Each letter has a point value. The object of the game is to construct words using letters already on the board and letters the player has, replacing letters as she plays them on the board.
"Word Find" is a game that has rows of letters going down and across, and within those rows of letters are hidden words. A list of the hidden words may be provided. The object of the game is to find and circle all the words and cross them off the list.