Home >> Games & Cards >> Kids Games

Fun Games That Teach Kids How to Write

Learning doesn't have to be arduous, nor does it have to be limited to the four walls of the school classroom. Help your child gain writing skills by playing family games that make learning fun and build good memories of times spent together. Several off-the-shelf games can be fun to play while teaching your children how to write. You may even find your own skills getting sharper as well.

Apples to Apples
- Apples to Apples is a party game that has several versions, including Apples to Apples Junior. It's a great game for developing descriptive writing. In it, there are red apple cards that have adjectives printed on them and green apple cards that have nouns printed on them. One player plays a green apple, and everyone else tries to play the red apple that the green apple player will choose as most appropriate, either because of its accuracy or its humor. The game helps your children start to think about how words go together and the different ways that a single noun or idea can be modified to come up with entirely different meanings.
Once Upon a Time
- Once Upon a Time is a card game that helps your child develop storytelling skills. Each player gets cards with classic fairytale elements on it. One person uses her cards to start telling a story, while others try to use their cards to interrupt the story and take over the storytelling. All players try to get the plot line to go in the direction of their cards and make it to a happily ever after. This game builds creative writing skills by teaching children how to keep a story line going and imaginatively incorporate unexpected elements.
Mad Libs
- Mad Libs are paper books published by Penguin House. They're a two-person activity in which the writer asks the other player to provide various parts of speech such as a noun, an adjective or a verb. Often they will ask for specific types of those parts of speech, such as a color or number. The writer fills in the words that the other person provides in the blank spots and then reads the resulting story. This helps teach the parts of speech and how putting in different words can create amusing and unexpected stories.
You've Been Sentenced
- Each player gets 10 cards that must then be used to create a sensible, grammatically correct sentence. Each card has several variations of a single word on the card, with each variation having different point values. Players add up the point values of their sentence, with the first person to create a sentence getting bonus points. This game gives children practice at forming strong sentences while teaching them how to use different forms of the same root word.
Scrabble
- While Scrabble doesn't involve plots or sentences, it is a good game for honing spelling skills and building vocabulary, especially when people of different vocabulary levels play. The classic board game comes with letter tiles that players use to form words. Keep a dictionary handy so players can look up any words they are unfamiliar with that another person plays. Given that you can form new words from words already played, the game can help your child develop skills at identifying root words and modifying them with prefixes and suffixes.

Kids Games