The best gifts for young readers are not necessarily books! At our house, Fridays are also known as “Game Days” because after a week’s worth of hard work at school, my kids and I deserve a break…and a reward. But since I didn’t totally want to sacrifice the learning time, I decided to invest in some educational boardgames. It’s a win-win situation for all of us!
We enjoy playing games like Mummy Math and Pizza Fraction Bingo, but we prefer the word games like Pharaoh’s Phonics and Boggle Jr. Many word games emphasize grammar and reading comprehension. Both of my kids love to read, so if your children enjoy a good book, too, then take a look at these 10 products that encourage a love of words….
Wild Word Adventure™ Early Language Game—It’s a jungle out there for beginning readers! This motivating game enables them to build 3–, 4– and 5–letter words by simply matching. Early learners hop around a game board, answer early literacy questions, and work to earn letters to build the word shown on their game card.
Ages 5 and up.
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Herd of Words™ Vocabulary Game—Head ’em up and move ’em out! Have fun corralling your herd of cute, quirky critters while answering questions designed to build key vocabulary and literacy skills. Game questions focus on synonyms, antonyms, homonyms/homographs and homophones. Twelve fun action cards feature two ways to play—one quick and one a bit more challenging. Includes 28 pawns to build 4 different herds, plus 80 double–sided, self–checking game cards. The game box creates an engaging “corral” for the players’ herds.
Ages 6 and up.
Cooking up Sentences™ Parts of Speech Game—Spice up grammar centers! Recipes call for students to categorize different parts of speech and build sentences. Add a silly word of your choice when you draw a Free Ingredient Card. Reading aloud at the end promotes fluency and reinforces spoken grammar. Includes 150 self-checking Parts of Speech Cards (word on the front, part of speech on back), double-sided recipe cards, pawns, spinner and game board measuring 19″ square. For 2-4 players.
Ages: 7 and up.
Go to Press!™ A Grammar Game—Bring the excitement of a big-city newspaper to your students with this unique proofreading game that focuses on spelling, word usage, capitalization, and punctuation. Players move from department to department finding and correcting errors in the headlines. The first player to create a complete newspaper by correctly editing and collecting a headline from each department, return to the boss’s office and say, “Go to press!” wins. Game cards feature questions asked in standardized-test format and are self checking with language rules printed at the bottom of each card.
Ages 7 and up.
Pharaoh’s Phonics™ Game—Spin your way to building better phonics skills with our Pharaoh’s Phonics game. Multiple skill levels teach long and short vowels, explore beginning blends and practice consonant sounds. Players challenge each other to build 3-, 4-, 5- and 6-letter words. The student with the first completed pyramid wins.
Ages 7 and up.
Word Family Fiesta: 2-3 Letter Word Families—These fun, educational games are packed with content to build and reinforce core curriculum. Games can be played with 2-to-6 players, and are offered at different levels, making them perfect for tiered instruction. High-interest graphics and exciting content will have students asking to play again and again!
Ages 7 and up.
Reading Roadway USA Game—Travel the USA discovering fascinating facts, while building reading comprehension skills. Players take turns spinning and moving their cars across the country while reading fun-filled facts based on the state they’ve landed on. The first person to comprehend and correctly answer each trivia question collects a souvenir. Be careful, spin a tornado, and you could get caught in a whirlwind! The first player to collect four souvenirs and return to their home state wins. For 2 to 4 players.
Ages 8 and up.
Magnetic Poetry Kids Story Maker—This kit contains over 150 word and phrase magnets. You can make all sorts of exciting stories or put together something silly. The magnets are color coded: purple tiles are nouns, red tiles are verbs, orange tiles are prepositions and green tiles are other things, so you learn language skills as you compose. Even better, you can create sentences just by putting together a few magnets. Who knew creating a story could be so easy and fun?
Ages 8 and up.
Hidden Hints: Context Clues Reading Comprehension Game—Earn the chance to solve a mystery by proving your word-sleuthing skills. Students practice making inferences and drawing conclusions as they tackle context clue questions. Reinforces both vocabulary in context and reading comprehension. Familiarizes students with multiple-choice standardized test question format. Includes 43 double-sided question cards, 7 double-sided game play cards, 40 self-checking hint cards, 16 game pieces, briefcase, and Activity Guide with answer key. Durable cardboard briefcase.
Ages 8 and up.
Buzzword—Bzzzz! Bzz! What’s the Buzzword? Let’s say the Buzzword is “ball.” You and your teammates have 45 seconds to solve 10 clues, and all the answers contain the word “ball.” Here you go…have a “ball”! For 4 or more players in teams.
Ages 10 and up.
