The object of this game is to increase vocabulary. It’s a game that people of all ages can play anywhere — there are no physical game pieces.
I love learning and games that involve brain work, so Word Train has become of of my personal favorites. This game is good for creating conversation, keeping boredom at bay, or even teaching kids vocabulary. English as a Second Language learners can also play to speed up the process of learning new words.
Here’s how to play: the first person says a word beginning with «A.» The next person says a word beginning with the last letter of the previous person’s word.
For example, number 1 says «ApplE.» The next person will say «ElephanT», and the person after will say «Tea.» The person who cannot come up with a word in 5 seconds is out, and people can play until a final winner is decided.
I was first introduced to the game when I was 4 by my sister. I read a lot, but I never looked up words because I could often guess through context. She was 6 at the time, and her teacher had taught her this game in an effort to foster the practice of using a dictionary.
Over the years, we’ve developed a few strategies to win the game. For example, try to end all your words with a «y»: the next person won’t have very many words to use unless he or she has a massive vocabulary.
Think of all the words you can starting with uncommon letters like «zebra», «xylophone», or «kaleidoscope» when it’s not your turn. If the person before you gives you a difficult letter, you’ll be ready to handle it.
You can also try changing up the rules. If you’re trying to review grammar, only do nouns, verbs, or propositions. To encourage vocabulary building, allow only words that are more than six letters long, or allow only words that are cognates from French or Latin.
The most fun I’ve had with this game was the story my sister and I made up while playing this game. It turned out to be a really silly story that resembled magnetic poetry, something along the lines of «mermaid dove. Entered deep pool. Like every young guppy, yonder regal lady yodelled.»
Maybe we were on a sugar high while we played that time, but the story still remains one of my most vivid memories of childhood!
FAQ
What are the most popular Word Games?
- Ghoul Search
- Word Search
- Word Links
- Swiper’s Spelling Book
- SpongeBob: Word Blocks
- Puddle Splash
- Polka Dot’s Bubble Puzzle
- Blue’s Clues: Wordlinks
- Spelling with Caillou
- Win, Lose or Draw
What are the best Word Games to play on mobile devices?
- Ghoul Search
- Word Search
- Word Links
- Swiper’s Spelling Book
- SpongeBob: Word Blocks
The games that make you smarter
Test your intelligence with Word Games! Have you ever explored this category? There’s a reason why it is one of the oldest and most popular on the internet. Jumbling up letters and forming words is a fun way to fill up your free time. Besides being so entertaining, they benefit the player in many other ways! Are you ready to explore this genre and find out more?
Say goodbye to the old fashioned crossword puzzles! Can you believe that you don’t need a pen and paper to have tons of fun with words? In modern-day challenges, all you need is a mouse or a keyboard. What is more, you don’t even need a dictionary! If you get stuck, the computer will show you all the solutions in just a few moments. Impressive!
Spelling is one of the most challenging subjects in school. However, there’s a fun way for you to improve your skills! Of course, we’re talking about playing the games in this category. If you have trouble memorizing your lessons, you’ll soon find that word puzzles will help you improve.
Finally, there’s no better way to improve your vocabulary than playing with letters to form words. Besides being extremely fun and addictive, this category will help train your brain. How exciting!
Have you tried some classic Word Games?
Everybody has played a classic word game at least once in their lifetime! Did you use to play them at parties or on a rainy day with your family or friends? They provide hours of fun to young and old players alike!
Luckily, nowadays, you don’t need to look through dusty old boxes to find your game! Besides, you can even play with people from all over the world, through the power of the internet. You’ll always have a willing partner, whether we’re talking about a real foe or just the computer. Let’s find out who wins!
Can you put together words using a bunch of random letters? What about modifying existing terms to form new ones? These are two of the most common tasks you’ll come across in this category. If you want to win, the trick is thinking on the go and taking advantage of your opponent’s moves. Therefore, try to use high-value letters to form uncommon words.
It comes down to knowledge and flexibility! If you are looking forward to improving your vocabulary, try the online Scrabble game. It’s such a well-loved classic!
Anagrams are another staple of this genre. What are they? Usually, you will have a limited number of letter tiles, generally between 5 and 8. Form as many words as you can using only those letters!
On the one hand, short terms might come to mind easier. On the other hand, it’s the complex combinations that bring in lots of points and help you advance to the next stage. It’s up to you to decide where to start!
As long as you keep your mind open and jumble the letters often, you’ll surely win. For example, the Text Twist 2 game will randomize your tiles automatically.
Look for words with your heroes!
Are you still on the fence about diving inside the universe of wordplay? Maybe you’ll make up your mind once you find out who you’ll meet here. Even the most famous superheroes need to wind down from time to time. Did you know that they like to spend their free time playing with letters?
Strength is not everything. Training your brain is just as useful if you want to fight evil. Practice with the coolest team of crime fighters in the Teen Titans Go: Word Search game!
Who said word games are boring? When you play with celebrities, their glamour and vibrant energy will help you have a blast. Also, the excitement of one on one competition will raise your adrenaline levels. Online game shows are perfect to practice your language skills with style.
Join your favorite animated and live-action stars and show your wits! For instance, the Win, Lose, or Draw game will help you prove that you are a pro with words. Can you beat it?
Word Games are so varied and fun! It’s only a matter of time until you find your favorite challenges. However, once you discover the puzzles you like best, you’ll be stuck to the keyboard for hours.
Don’t feel guilty! The good news is that every minute spent in this category will make you a little bit smarter. Therefore, never stop practicing!
There are currently 48 free online Word games on our website. You can play the games on your computer or laptop, using any browser. Some of the games are also available for your tablets or Android and iOS phones. Here you can see the games 1 — 30.
This school year has roared out of the blocks like Usain Bolt running the 100 meter sprint in Beijing. And like Mr. Bolt, every member of the school community is learning that their capacity to go faster and accomplish more is yet to be discovered. But even with numerous multi-tasking and time-management challenges, I’ve had a few moments to pause and enjoy the enthusiastic and intelligent learning connections teachers at my school are bringing to their students.
Early one morning, while Blue Bird coaches were still delivering our clients to school, one of our young teachers, Sarah Newell, stopped me in the office to rave about one of her summer reading favorites, The Mother Tongue, by Bill Bryson. Sarah was struck by Bryson’s ability to deepen her knowledge of the English language and simultaneously inspire learning activities that will do the same for her students. She referred me to a passage in Bryson’s book where he discusses how a word’s meaning changes over time. For example, Bryson notes the word nice first came into use in the late 1200s. Its original meaning was stupid or foolish, but over the centuries, nice has meant lascivious and wanton, elegant, slothful, precise, and finally, since about 1769, pleasant and agreeable.
Sarah and I began to form sentences in which nice took on the various meanings listed in Bryson’s book. Mainly through changing our vocal inflection and altering our facial expressions, we were able to capture each meaning. We were having a blast with this game, and when we finally parted company, I advised Sarah to, «have a nice day.» We both laughed as we realized that nice would never again be the same for either of us.
Together, Sarah and I had been learning more about words by playing with their meanings. Bringing this kind of playful learning into our classrooms allows students to explore word meaning in ways which make learning more permanent. Wordplay is a productive learning tool for students, and it can take many forms.
Bring wordplay into your classroom through technology. Creating a blog or wiki creates a platform to launch discussions about words. For instance, social studies teachers are using blogs and wikis to help students understand election year language. Some of the political terminology being tosses around during this political season can truly baffle students. Technology provides teachers with opportunities to create relevant forums that guide student inquiry as they expand and deepen their word knowledge. Teachers can set up a blog or wiki as a place where students share words and phrases they’ve heard used by political commentators and candidates. By using free web tools, like Blogger, teachers can create safe online environments to guide virtual discussions about all areas of their content, even word study.
There are other Internet based tools available to bring language to life. For example, TeacherTube is a great resource for finding videos that demonstrate wordplay and fun approaches to studying word parts. The Word Detective, an excellent web site for tracking the origins of language, currently has a very illuminating explanation of the term vetting, as in «vetting a candidate.» The amazing link between a word now used to describe the process for researching a candidate’s readiness for office and its original meaning related to sending an animal doctor to the track to discern the health of a race horse, will certainly help many students become fascinated with the life of words. This Word Detective article could also become part of a focus lesson on creating and using analogies. Imagine having students in an American Government class create analogies using the relationships between a political race and a horse race. This activity would not only deepen their understanding of the American political system, but it would also increase their skill at using the specialized vocabulary of politics.
Spending a little time scanning the Internet for great word game resources just might lead you back to the Visual Thesaurus. Word Routes, including its regular «Mailbag Friday» feature, continues to be a source of fun with words. In a recent Word Routes column, the term bail out is given an historic perspective. When used in an economics class, this concise and breezily written article gives a context to what is happening with our current economic distress and helps students broaden their knowledge of content and content specific word knowledge. Mailbag Friday approaches words from a lighthearted perspective. The origin and uses of one of my favorite words, dude, was recently discussed in the column. This article was short, well-written, and guaranteed to hold the interest of any teenager. This is an example of an outside-the-textbook gem that provides teachers with the resources to make word study more like play than work.
But isn’t wordplay supposed to be about games? Game-playing with words is definitely a part of wordplay. I admit that I love words so dearly, anything I do to learn more of them and use them correctly seems like play. Many teachers use games to help students play with developing a larger vocabulary. Teacher-made games based on popular word games like Scrabble, Boggle, and Jeopardy are plentiful in our classrooms. Inventive teachers are constantly creating new ways to help students expand their word knowledge. Wordplay can include the use of acronyms where students use excellent vocabulary to describe a concept they are learning. Wordplay features the exploration of alliteration, oxymoron, and other literary devices to make writing more descriptive. Wordplay involves content teachers connecting meaning through analogies and metaphors. Wordplay is everywhere.
Finally, the goal of wordplay is to help our students develop a real interest in and love for the language. Our students live in a new world; a world where language is in constant flux. A teacher’s role in this fast paced learning environment, where each day word meanings are coalesced and melded into new meanings, is to act as the guide, leading the way. Educators must get out in front of these rapidly moving trends in language and help students understand that the bridge between these new trends and traditional language can handle two-way traffic. And like Usain Bolt, with our arms joyfully outstretched, cruising across the finish line ahead of the pack, we need to lead our students to greater word knowledge and therefore, to a greater understanding of the world they will soon lead.
Перед моими первоклашками, в числе которых есть и Даша, стоит непростая задача: научиться не только понимать английский и говорить на нём, но и освоить чтение на языке, а также письмо. Поэтому я изобрела для них небольшое ноу-хау, которое и покажу вам сегодня. Мы вовсе не учимся читать и писать с семилетками — нет-нет, мы составляем поезда! И, признаюсь вам, этот вид деятельности радует меня сразу по нескольким аспектам: во-первых, наши поезда способны успокоить, усадить за парту и занять делом даже самых шумных и активных мальчишек. Во-вторых, я не могу сдержать улыбку, когда в ответ на предложение пособирать поезда слышу возгласы: «Ура!», «Я люблю поезда!», «Это моё любимое дело!». А что ещё нужно педагогу для счастья?!
Итак, рассказываю обо всём по порядку. Изначально наши поезда — это набор вагончиков-слов, каждое из которых расположено на карточке с двумя дырочками, и моток пряжи:
Здесь стоит сказать, что мы занимаемся по учебнику «Macmillan Starter Book», каждый раздел которого завершается несколькими словосочетаниями или предложениями на изученные буквы. Ну, вот, например:
Когда детки уже отработали чтение этих предложений, я выкладываю на свободную парту все слова со странички, называю предложение для каждого ученика или каждой пары учеников и приглашаю всех выбрать вагоны для своего состава. Вагоны разобраны — ребята получают небольшие отрезки пряжи для их скрепления и принимаются за работу. В классе воцаряется тишина: каждый увлечён развитием собственной мелкой моторики (продёргиванием верёвочек в дырочки, завязыванием узелков), некоторым нужна помощь.
Готовые составы наши машинисты привозят на станцию, на доску, и прикрепляют магнитами. Когда все поезда прибыли, мы проверяем, правильно ли они скомплектованы, и читаем их хором:
Иногда назначаю самого активного и нетерпеливого ученика начальником станции, чтобы он проверил комплектацию вагонов ещё до группового чтения.
Вот так мы шагаем от букв через чтение и через составление предложений к письму.
Лингвистическая игра «Enjoy Train» является интересным дополнительным материалом по английскому языку для учащихся 3 классов.
Цели и задачи:
— развитие творческих способностей
— повышение интереса учащихся к изучению английского языка
— формирование навыков работы в коллективе при решении определенных задач
Игра состоит из 12 этапов, станций. Правильное выполнение всех заданий каждой станции позволяет учащимся набрать максимальное количество баллов.
Station 1. Secret letter. Name the words beginning with «B».
Station 2. Match these words with the transcription.
Station 3. Complete the conversation.
Station 4. Words. Make up the words using the letters of the word.
Station 5. Sand glass. Guess the words from the following letters.
Station 6. 10 animals. Find 10 animals.
Station 7. «Odd word». Find one odd word in each line.
Station 8. Mistakes. Find a spelling mistake in one word of each sentence.
Station 9.Countries. Match the country with its capital.
Station 10. 5 Themes. Name 10 words on the following themes/
Station 11. «Puzzle’. Make up 2 sentences from the words.
Station 12. Use of English. Open the brackets and put the verbs into the proper tense form.