Games for Language Arts

I have always loved games and was so excited when our children could finally play. Sorry, Go Fish, Memory and Clue were amongst my childhood favorites and  when I met Jay we spent long hours sipping tea and playing games like Gin and Cribbage.  Will you play a game with me?"  is a common question around here especially in the evening.  Games are not just recreational entertainment but a wonderful way to introduce a new topic, practice new skills or review previously learned materials.  Here are three games we use in the area of Language Arts:

Snap It Up Word Families-- Snap It UP is a fun game to practice word families, spelling skills and quick thinking. Each player is given consonant cards and word ending cards in which to build words.  The first player to build 3 words wins.

This is a great game for A because he needs a lot of reading practice and it gives him another way to build and read his own words.  Often, after we have a winner we just continue building as many words as we can until the deck runs out.

E is a great reader but needs a lot of spelling help, she often misspells words because she is in such a hurry to be done with her lessons.  Snap It Up causes her to take the time to think and sound out words.

Word Family Activity Wheel--This is a fun game for both our older and younger children.  E and A get spelling and writing practice and the little ones are entertained and exposed to early learning as they spin the wheel. This set is from Lakeshore Learning and came with an activity guide and 20 reproducible activity cards. I tried to link to the game but is appears they no longer have the game available.

The activity cards include things like bingo, charades, rhymes and drawing.

Bananagrams- Another fun word building and spelling game.  This one is a real challenge to build a crossword type puzzle using all of one's tiles.  I have watched the children sound out both real words and nonsense words in order to win the game. E has gotten good at doing her own spelling and A still needs help.

A grid that E built.

A sounding out words and building his puzzle.

A's finished grid.

I try to reserve Friday's for game playing and any wrapping up that needs to be done.  We have also taken a week and called it "Game Week". And sometimes we even pick a game to play for a month at a time, designating it to a certain day of the week.  I don't know, maybe it's just me, but games can really re-energize myself and the children and change the whole course of the day from just another school day to "the best day ever."

If you have never checked out Deb's Montessori Monday Posts check it out here, I am linking up every Monday to update our educational happenings for both our older and younger children.