Welcome to my growing list of English language games and activities for kids you can do at home or when you out and about. You can also adapt several of these for use in the English classroom.
For your browsing convenience, I have split these into four sections: Reading, Speaking, Writing and Listening. These are the language skills that the respective games help develop.
Some of these games overlap in terms of skill development but I have organized them in terms of the primary skill they develop.
For your browsing convenience, I have split these into four sections: Reading, Speaking, Writing and Listening. These are the language skills that the respective games help develop.
Some of these games overlap in terms of skill development but I have organized them in terms of the primary skill they develop.
Reading
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Menu Alphabet Soup
Make menu alphabet soup while waiting for your food in a restaurant. Meets all and every dietary restriction for sure! |
Road Sign I Spy
Turn road signs into clues for solving a mystery. Your child will have her eyes peeled on the road and she may not even ask "Are we there yet?" once. |
Vowel Finder
Did you know that although English has only 5 vowel letters, it has more than 9 vowel sounds. In this activity, your child and you will be hunting down these sounds. |
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Jabberwocky Aloud
The Jabberwocky is coming!! Wait, what is a Jabberwocky? Using the famous poem by Lewis Caroll, we will learn how to piece together meanings of unknown words using context clues. |
Speaking
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Room Surveyor
Look through every nook and cranny of where you are to win this word game. Is it worth it? Absolutely! |
Word Families
Find 'word family' trees! What's a 'word family' you ask? Let's just say words never have any reason to feel lonely again. |
Taboo Sentences
Create descriptions of words with various requirements such as the number of sentences and the types of coordinate markers that can be used. Why? Why not? |
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Improvisation
Role playing is fun. So why not role play your favorite characters with your child? Finally, you get to fulfill your life long desire to be a fish monger. |
Sentence Chains
How long can you keep forming longer and longer sentences? Challenge your creativity (and memory) in this game. |
License Plate Scramble
Choose a license plate you see on the road and form a word with as many of the letters on the plate as possible. So simple and yet so fun! |
Writing
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Squiggle Lines
Writing on straight lines is hard enough. In this activity, the lines get all wonky. Can your child keep between these crazy lines? |
Reader Creator
A movie deal from a book may not be too far in your child's future with this activity of narrative creation. Probably not going to happen anytime soon, but one can dream, eh? |
Sentence Generator
Transform your child into a robot (again!). This time the robot is going to learn about the different sentence types and the difference between grammar words and meaning words. |
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Decrypting hunt
Unleash your child's inner spy as she decodes encrypted clues using code keys in order to find a reward! |
Air Writer
Pretend that the sky is your canvas as you and your child write out letters and words in the air for the other to guess. |
Listening
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Word Hunt
Use your child's favorite song or TV show as a tool to teach your child about the sounds of the English language. |
Robot Walk
Transform your child into a robot and give him/ her instructions to complete a super important mission. |
Object I Spy
Why settle for simple clues when you can make them much more complicated? There is more than one way to describe an object after all. |
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Sitting down Simon Says
‘Simon Says’ is very different in this activity where 'Simon' wants your child to practice good listening and speaking. |