Word Games for Kids

You'll need to be fast in order to do well on this quick draw art game.

What You'll Need:

Step 1: Before you begin, ask someone who won't be playing with you to write down some famous sayings or parts of songs. Have the person write each one on a small, separate piece of paper and then fold it.

Step 2: Put these pieces of paper into a cup or hat. If younger kids are playing, you can write down names of animals or objects that they can draw instead of songs or sayings.

Step 3: The first player chooses a piece of paper from the cup. Then he or she draws clues on paper so the other players can guess what the phrase is. Of course, you can't use letters or numbers -- that would be spelling, not drawing.

Step 4: You'd better be quick on the draw; you only have two minutes to get your point across. If someone guesses your word or phrase in that time, you get one point. If not, you get no points. Either way, it's someone else's turn to be the artist.

Continue reading to the next page and learn more about the switch-and-show word game.

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Try this switch-and-show word game and see how one word can make all the difference. Demonstrating how important one word can be to a story, this lively game also brings out the laughs.

What You'll Need:

Step 1: Pick your favorite short story and photocopy it. On the photocopies, replace key words with similar but different words. If you picked a story about three well-known bears, you could replace "three" with "fifteen," "bears" with "rabbits," and "porridge" with "celery."

Step 2: Don't forget to make the replacements everywhere that word is mentioned. Now read the story with the new words in place. Does it change the meaning of the story? The moral? Does it still make sense?

Step 3: Now illustrate your favorite moment in the updated story, just to remind you of the fun.

Do you like memory games? Read on to the next page and learn more about our family match-up word game.

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This family match-up word game will surely test your memory. If you've ever played memory match-up games -- those face-down card games that dare you to find the two zebras for a match -- this game gives a new twist to the age-old challenge.

What You'll Need:

Step 1: On a piece of scrap paper, make a list of the names of 10 family and friends: Mom, Dad, Sis, Cousin Bob, best friend Karen, etc. Then write down the one or two words that best describe each person. Funny? Computer wizard? Tall? Skier?

Step 2: Those descriptive words will represent the perfect match in this memory card game. Write each name and each word on its own 3 x 3-inch piece of card stock. For each pair, mark a color-coded X so you'll know you've made the right match.

For example, the card with "Dad" and the card that matches him, "Tall," will each have a purple X on them; the set for "Mom" and her match will each have a red X on them, etc.

Step 3: When you are finished making the game, mix up the cards and spread them all out, face down, on a flat surface. Put all the pieces in a resealable plastic bag after you've finished playing your game.

Lost pieces will make it hard to win (or play) the game!

Read on to the next page and learn more about our exciting word puzzler game.

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Try this fun word puzzler game, it's a game you can make and play over and over again.

What You'll Need:

Step 1: Find a long and complicated word in your favorite dictionary. Write it out at the top of a blank sheet of paper. Now try to find words made up of the letters in the word you've selected -- you can use the letters only as many times as they appear in the word.

Step 2: Give yourself one point for each word built from rearranging letters. Give yourself two points for words you find in the original word without switching the letters around.

To add more of a challenge, put a two-minute time limit on each round of your game.

Are your words lacking a little something extra? Continue to the next page and learn more about our word pictures activity. Give your favorite words the spark they deserve!

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Words are just another way for us to express what we see. Combine your word skills with your artistic ability to paint a better -- more literal -- picture of what you see. This word game brings the creativity of crafts and language together for a fun activity.

What You'll Need:

Some words seem more powerful than their quiet cousins. "Big" seems small when compared to "enormous." "Wet" seems a little dry when held up next to "drenched."

Pick your favorite powerful word, and carefully draw it in large block letters on a blank piece of paper. Then decorate the block letters with pictures and designs that help illustrate just what this blockbuster word means.

Read on to the next page and learn more about our word picture book activity.

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Try this word picture book activity and see how one picture is truly worth a thousand words -- or is it the other way around?

What You'll Need:

Thousands of new words are waiting for you to discover them in your favorite dictionary. So why not get started learning every single one?

Step 1: Open your dictionary to a page at random.

Step 2: Find a word you've never seen before. Read the definition carefully. Once you understand what the new word means, illustrate it on a piece of blank paper.

Step 3: Add a new page to your Word Picture Book each week -- it's like having your own picture dictionary!

How far can you tell a story beginning every word with the same letter? Try our one-letter storytelling activity on the next page and see for yourself.

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Challenge your storytelling ability with the one-letter storytelling activity. It will make you think more, and challenge your mind to come up with something really creative on the fly.

What You'll Need:

Step 1: Just for fun, see if you can write a simple story using words that start with the same letter of the alphabet. Writing an "A" story? Start with, "An ant ate apples at Alaska's arctic area."

step 2: See how long you can continue without breaking the letter chain. Don't get discouraged -- this is sometimes difficult but always a blast! For extra fun, illustrate your story.

Do you love sports and words? Combine them with our sports word game on the next page -- the results are hilarious.

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Complete this sports word game and find out if sliding into home can have a whole new meaning.

What You'll Need:

Step 1: Do you love baseball? Live for football? Shoot for record-breaking hoops? Write out the special terms used in your favorite sport (words such as base, plate, and mound for baseball; dunk, court, and foul for basketball, etc.)

Step 2: Now ask yourself...do these words have other meanings? Look the words up in a dictionary to see if they have other meanings. How would those meanings change your favorite sport?

Step 3: What would happen if Sammy Sosa slid into a home plate made of good china? Could John Elway score if all the receivers were parts of a telephone? Explore the magic of words and meanings -- these would also make great pictures!

Continue reading to the next page and learn more about our word scramble game.

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The word scramble game gives you two minutes to come up with the "write" words. It's a race against the clock to express yourself into a win.

What You'll Need:

Step 1: Write 20 each of your favorite:

Step 2: Cut each into one-word strips, and toss them all into a box. Shake them up, dump them out, and see how many crazy sentences you can come up with in two minutes.

Continue reading to the next page and find out how to write headlines like the pros with our headline hunt activity.

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Craft a crazy idea using this headline hunt activity. Newspaper editors spend hours writing the perfect headlines. Now you can get a laugh out of their hard work.

What You'll Need:

Step 1: Clip all the headlines from an old newspaper, cut the words apart, and drop them in a box. Mix them up.

Step 2: Now try to make goofy headlines of the bits and pieces you've collected, and glue your favorite combinations on a page. Headline a crazy story only you could imagine -- with a little help from the real news!

Continue reading to the next page and learn how to make a jigsaw puzzle of your favorite poem.

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The puzzle poem activity combines the skill required for a puzzle with the verbal creativity of poems. Make and play this game alone or with friends.

What You'll Need:

Step 1: Craving a puzzle with personal appeal? Write your favorite poem, classic or original, on a blank sheet of paper. Illustrate the poem with bright colors and drawings.

Step 2: Glue the paper to a piece of cardboard, and let it dry completely. Once it's dry, cut the stiff page into small pieces. You'll have your own personal puzzle poem to put back together and enjoy.

Are your stories lacking a bit of color? Read on to the next page, try our color of color word activity, and see the difference.

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The color of color word activity requires a big, boisterous vocabulary. Try this activity with your most verbose friends, and learn a few new words in the process.

What You'll Need:

Professional writers know words have the power to paint pictures. Find out how great that power is with this colorful exercise. When you describe a red rose, is red really just red?

Or is that vivid rose really scarlet? Is your blue sky just blue? Or is it a robin's egg blue horizon? Is the sun shining yellow, or is it bathing your world in gold? It's up to you.

How many words can you come up with for the colors of the rainbow? Make a list to find out.

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