Language Arts games for a group...

[Kelli in TN]

I am going to cross post this on the high school board as well.

 

My church is doing some homeschool classes and I am teaching some basic writing. By the time I get the kids they are at the end of their day and they are worn out. So I like to liven things up with games. I don't want games I have to purchase, I just want things we can do with little to no supplies. They need to reinforce English skills (communication, grammar, etc).

 

We do not want to play any more MadLibs for awhile!

 

I have two classes, the first is lower elementary. The second class is about fifth grade all the way up to 12th.

 

Any ideas?

[Hoggirl]

so I have no idea if it would work or be any fun. BUT, what if you put different words on 8.5 x 11 pieces of paper. Each child has a different part of speech. I think some parts of speech would need several holders. So some kiddos have nouns, verbs, adjective, adverbs, prepositions, articles, etc. OH! Some kiddos could have punctuation marks!! Then, you holler out something like "Make a declarative sentence that has a state of being verb." Then they have to run around and form the sentence holding their pieces of paper in the right order. Am I making any sense at all? Probably not since I just made this up! :lol: You could start off really easy and then get more complicated:

 

Make a compound sentence.

 

Make a complex sentence.

 

Make an declarative sentence that uses a preopositional phrase.

 

Make a sentence that uses a gerund.

 

Make a sentence that starts with an adverbial clause.

 

Okay, you get the idea.

 

They could do it in groups and race each other.

 

Maybe this is silly. :001_unsure:

[Kissy]

You can all contribute to a story..like you can start it and then time it or just tell them when the next person should start the story..this is an oral game and gets funny sometimes. This could work for both age groups just change up the story.

 

Hangman on the board...jeopardy you would take a hanging thing with pockets so you could put categories at the top and mark each answer with a $ amount with questions all ready put on the back..have it with teams. The categories could be parts of speech, literature, capitalization, punctuation, etc..depending on which group you are with as to how hard the answer is. Make sure they answer in question form..

 

this was taken from another site..

Another game I play is a little like the old game on TV called the 100,000 pyramid. I get 2 chairs; one faces the class and the other faces the chalkboard. (For this game the children are paired up) The object: The teacher gives the child facing the board a word. That child has to describe the word without using the word while describing it. Ex. bus Its yellow, long, kids ride in it

Ex. monkey Its brown, an animal, likes bananas

You determine how long the student has to guess the word. If your children are old enough to spell words, then the child describing the word can spell it on the board so you and the children know the word. That is up to you. It is a great game to get children thinking of the vocab words that they know and it is a lot of fun!

 

You can assign kinda like homework for them to do a memory bag..they bring in a bag filled with objects that represent a story they recently read they choose elements like character, setting, event, problem, and solution and tell the story to the class about the book they read using the objects telling why they chose the objects. I just recently did this with my son and he liked it.

[8filltheheart]

this is an activity my dh and I did with our confirmation class. I took sheets of construction paper and cut them into very bizarre shapes. I put exact copies into paired envelopes. Then we had the kids sit back to back, each with their own envelope. One person had to give directions to the other person about how to arrange the shapes on the floor in front of them. The other person could ask no questions. At the end, they stood up and looked to see how close the 2 arrangements looked.

 

The point of the exercise was that effective communication is necessary if we are going to convey even simple ideas. When it comes to even more complex ideas (like theology), word choice, precision.....they are beyond necessary. We must know exactly what we believe if we are going to even attempt to convey it.

 

Writing is similar. Readers don't get to ask the writer questions. The writer needs to anticipate any confusion in order to make sure that the reader really understands what is meant to be conveyed. Word precision/selection are the writer's tools. They need to be employed or the two images.......the writer's and the reader's may not even possess a resemblance.

[readwithem]

Have the children sit in a circle. Go around the circle, first child says an article (a/an/the). second child says an adjective, third child says a noun, fourth child says a verb, fifth child says an adverb. All is fair as long as it's the right type of word. Write them on the board as they go.