Grammar, Spelling, and Word Games
These require no preparation. Just pick one and get started! No more grammar, vocabulary and spelling guilt.
- Over breakfast, identify the parts of speech for every action you perform and item you use. Stump each other, if you can. I chowed the chow while chewing. (Chowed: verb, Chow: noun, Chewing: gerund)
- Grab a stack of magazines or books and thumb through them until you find a word you don’t know. Look it up and use it in a sentence. (You can make this a game by suggesting that everyone do it at the same time and then share the word at teatime. See if anyone knows what it means and how to use it before the “expert” teaches them what it is.)
- Turn nouns into verbs: I chaired the meeting, I tabled the discussion, I forked over the money, I couched my words in apologies…
- Look up the name of a bird and then memorize its Latin name. See if there is a relationship between the Latin and the English. Look it up online and see if you can find out what the Latin means.
- Make a word scramble. Everyone picks five words, scrambles the spellings and then passes the list of scrambled words to the right. Set the timer for three minutes. Unscramble as quickly as you can. When the bell rings, pass the list to the right again. Reset the timer and go. Keep going until every word is unscrambled. Work with your neighbor if your list is finished. The goal isn’t to win, but for the entire group to unscramble every single word.
