Reading sight word games
20 Sight Word Games, Activities, and Reading Ideas
If your child is learning to read, then you know that sight words are high-frequency words common in most text, words like the, and, they, or she. Knowing these words at a glance makes reading easier. Here you’ll find sight word games, apps, multi-sensory activities, and reading ideas. I recommend trying multiple approaches to engage your child’s different modalities of learning these words.
Also, it’s important to note that schools generally use either the Dolch or the Fry Sight Word lists. The lists are slightly different so make sure you know which one to use.
GAMESGames bring an element of fun and playfulness to learning. Since many of these games ask for sight word playing cards, make your own using index cards or download free printable cards here for the Dolch list and here for the Fry list.
Memory
Make your own card deck with two of each sight word. Shuffle. Place the cards face down in rows. When it’s your turn, turn over two cards and try to get a matching pair. If you don’t have a match, turn the cards back over. The winner is the player with the most pairs. (See example on Frogs, Snails and Puppy Dog Tails.)
Bingo
Download premade bingo cards grouped by levels of sight words here. Or, make your own bingo cards with the specific group of words your child is learning.
Scavenger Hunt
Make a list of sight words and a corresponding sticky note for each word on the list. Have your child find the sticky note somewhere in your house and match the word with the corresponding word on the master list.
Go Fish
We played this game a lot when my youngest learned her words. Make a set of sight word pairs (or make four like the original game) for each word. You’ll probably want at least 30 cards. Deal out five cards to each player. Play using the Go Fish rules — either looking for two or four cards to make a set.
Ukloo
We love this store-bought treasure hunt because it helps kids practice reading sight words. The game clues come in three levels, each has clues written primarily with sight words. We made it inexpensive by finding the silliest “treasures” we could find such as a gum wrapper or paper clip.
Zingo!
Kids won’t even care they’re practicing sight words because this Bingo game makes practice such a blast.
Technology often motivates kids to learn, which is why sight word apps can be a helpful tool. Try these learning apps and see which one your child enjoys most.
Bob Books Reading Magic Sight Words
Read the highlighted word in a sentence and practice writing by dragging the letters to the spaces at the bottom.
Gappy Learns Reading
Fill in the missing letter or letters to make bridges for the rabbit to cross and get home. Includes both three letter words and sight words.
The Sight Word Adventure
Play 10 fun games such as whack-a-mole, letter scramble, and hide-and-seek to practice 320 sight words at five levels.
Sight Word Games
With a section for learning and one for playing games, this new app from This Reading Mama gives kids more ways to practice their words, including Hangman and Bingo.
Sight Word Bingo
My kids loved the cute monsters in this entertaining Bingo game that uses the Dolch words.
We have many senses other than our visual and auditory senses that can be engaged for optimum learning. These activities add in movement and touch.
Chants
With these chants, your child will work to learn the words while moving and acting like an animal.
Play Dough Mats
Using play dough and a sight word mat, make the letters of each sight word. Then write the words below.
Magnet Letters
Make your sight words on a magnetic surface using magnetic letters.
Wikki Stix or Pipe Cleaners
Build your sight words using Wikki Stix or pipe cleaners.
Beads
Practice your words by threading letter beads onto pipe cleaners to make each one.
Flash Cards
You’ll want a list of the words your child needs to learn so that you can make your own flash cards or buy them. Then tackle a few each day. When your child has learned a word, post it on a wall to celebrate. Soon you’ll have a wall filled with words they can read!
Bob Books
Bob Books are short leveled books that help children learn a few words at a time, practice those words in the books, and then move on to reading more. We found them to be a very helpful resource.
Sentence Cards
These are printable cards with a sight word and the sight word used in a short sentence. They don’t just increase a child’s sight word bank, they also improve reading skills too.
Printable Leveled Booklets
These are short, printable books that you can download for free or for a small price that are text controlled. In other words, you can choose the appropriate reading level with what specific sight words your child needs to learn.
Have other tips for how to help kids learn sight words? Share in the comments below.
10 Interactive Online Games to Teach Sight Words to Beginning Readers
Sight words and high frequency words are an important part of teaching new readers. These words have to be memorized, which means they require a lot of repetition and practice. I love using these online games to teach sight words in my classroom.
Sight word instruction can be really challenging in the classroom because you have a classroom filled with students who learn different things in different ways at different paces. 🥴
It requires so much repetition and practice, yet all of our students need those things in different ways.
I tackle sight word instruction from all sides. We read them in sentences, practice them with music and movement, do art projects, and more!
These 10 online games to teach sight words are FREE and super interactive. [Free as of August 2019] They give students the chance to practice identifying, matching and reading sight words, all while playing fun games.
Note: Did you know there is a difference between sight words and high frequency words? I thought they were the same for the longest time. Knowing their differences has helped me with my instruction. Read more about that here!
Sight Word Bingo
This classic bingo game from abcya.com is a favorite for all of my students. The little amoeba monster at the top says a word, then the student identifies it and clicks it.
This game words great on a computer or on an interactive white board. I have my students take turns at the SmartBoard in my classroom during a center or we do it whole group when we have a minute to spare.
No matter when we use it, it’s a student favorite. 👍🏼
Sight Word Smash
Students love this fun, sight word identification game. The computer says a word. Then they use the pointer to find it and smash it.
I like this game because the word is on more than one block so students get the repetition of seeing and identifying the word multiple times!
Sight Word Memory
There are many, many sight word memory games online but this one is my favorite. I like that the computer says the word as you flip the card, whether it’s a match or not.
Seeing and hearing a word multiple times is perfect for auditory and visual learners. I also appreciate that when they finish a level, they can keep playing with new words!
Sight Words in Space
Students love this space themed sight word game. A cat says the word they are trying to find. Words float by in power cells and they have to click the right one.
The words are floating up so students have to identify them quickly.
Just like in Sight Word Smash, words appear more than one time, too. 👏
Listen & Spell
I absolutely love this Listen & Spell game! We know that readers struggle with sight words because they do not follow phonics rules or because they are too advanced. We also know that students learn to read and write words at the same time.
This game gives them the chance to spell sight words with a limited number of letters at the bottom. First it says the word, then students use the yellow letters to spell it. The only letters available are letters that are in the word.
Playing this game helps students move on from “identifying” to “creating” on Bloom’s Taxonomy, which we know helps make information stick. Students will gain confidence in writing their sight words as well as reading them!
Sight Word Jigsaw
This identification game uses the same concepts as matching, except students are able to see all of the words at one time. They click the sound button on one of the yellow pieces to hear the word they are looking for.
Then they find the blue word puzzle piece and drag it over.
I like that this game adds the element of looking at several words to find the correct one. It gives students practice at quickly identifying words by their beginning sounds.
Popcorn Words
Students playing this game are working the popcorn machine at a movie theater. A monkey comes up to the counter and says a sight word. Students click on the correct sight word to give it to the monkey.
Once they have handed out 10 popcorn buckets correctly, they get to play a quick in-between game and then are promoted. Their goal is to become the manager. I’m sure it will not surprise you to hear that my students beg to play this game!
Kitten Hop
This silly game is another favorite of my students. They are playing a kitten who bounces from yarn ball to yarn ball. The computer says a sight word. That word is on one of the four yarn balls in front of the one your kitten is on.
Students love this game because they are racing three other kittens.
The winner is the one who reaches the couch at the end of the game first. They have to be quick at matching the sight word their hear to the correct ball of year if they want to win!
Note: this game has options at the beginning for choosing a color, a name, etc. You will want to teach your students how to do this quickly (and set that expectation) so that they can do it independently.
Starfall Sight Words
Though I’ve already included a Memory Sight Word game, who doesn’t love Starfall? In this sight word game, the students need to determine if it is the same sight word by sight alone as it is not read until the match is made. But I love that they have three stars in the upper left corner to show their progress to the next level.
Once the student completes the game, they can move on to Level 2, where the sight words are slightly more difficult. The students love moving up a level to show their achievement!
My Reading Tools
In My Reading Tools, students see a kangaroo get several tools to become a better reader.
The first tool is a flashlight. He uses it to highlight words in a dark cave.
This game is more challenging than the rest because students are asked to finish the sentence with the word spelled correctly. The computer reads the sentence. Then students hover their flashlight around the cave to find the word. 🔦
In this example, I was looking for the word “again.” The other options in the cave were misspelled words “agin,” “agane,” etc. This game is perfect for students who are confidently reading many sight words and are ready for a challenge!
These 10 online games to teach sight words are perfect for giving students extra practice and lots of repetition during centers in my classroom. Did I miss any of your favorites? How do you like to practice sight words? Let me know below! 👇
Digital Sight Word Lessons with Practice
Are you looking for digital ways to teach sight words?
I mean, what’s the point of practicing a word (even with the fun and free sight word games shared above) if a student has not explicitly been taught a sight word? 🤔
For this very reason, I’ve created 150 sight word lessons with practice.
These Google Slides lesson and practice can be used with any free Google accounts and are so easy to assign in Google Classroom!
As you assign words to your students one at a time, they will learn, identify, build, read in context, and master the new sight word. It’s explicit instruction and practice, all in one.
Don’t just take my word for it, watch the lesson in action in the video below. 👇🏽
While the lessons DO have audio, this preview video does not. 🎧 Students can have the words and sentences read to them, if needed.
You can purchase the 150 Digital Sight Word Lessons and Practice (for use with Google Slides™️ on my website or TpT.
Click HERE to buy on Teachers Pay Teachers
Click on the button below to purchase on my website (where you get lifetime access)!
Sight Words Distance Learning | Digital Sight Word Lessons | Homeschool
$25.00
Are you looking for the perfect way to teach new sight words and review old sight words while distance learning? You NEED this resource.
Digital sight word activities can be fun, but what good are they if students haven’t learned the sight word yet? Should they practice something that they haven’t learned about yet?
Enter: Digital Sight Words Learn and Practice! This 100% digital sight word resource is every sight word teacher’s dream! Yes, that you includes you, homeschool parents!
Each sight word activity (there are 100 words included!) guides students through learning the word, reading the word, identifying the word, building/spelling the word, and using the word.
Buy Now
This is such a fabulous digital sight word program and SO well-made!!!! Very creative…love the stickers they can give themselves at the end! -Lacy S.
10 word games that will entertain the whole family
They will help pass the time for those who are very, very bored, and at the same time train their memory and repeat the rules of spelling. These games have a huge plus: they don't need any "special equipment" at all.
You can play at home (and without being distracted from other things: at the same time, for example, removing toys), in the car and even on the phone when you are forced to be in quarantine.
1. “Two letters”
A complicated version of the usual word game: you need to come up with a new word not for the last letter, but for the last two: "parsley - cabbage - plate - cuttlefish - heron - frog - quarantine".
2. "What's in the middle?"
Name any 2 letters: for example, "P" and "A". The task of other players is to come up with as many words as possible, where "P" will be the first", "A" - the last. "turnip", "rhyme", "rumba", "rocket", "rowan", "chamomile", "reconnaissance" and even "reconnaissance"!
3. “Packing the suitcase”
The driver says: “I am going to the country house and I am taking some important things with me” and lists 2-3. The trick is that all these things have one common feature.
(It is better to choose something non-obvious). For example, he thought that he takes everything yellow with him. And he says: "I take a bottle of oil and a bouquet of buttercups."
Players should be asked questions (Can I bring my bike? Cat? Textbook?) trying to figure out how things get into the suitcase.
4. “Where did the vowels hide?”
Name 2 (for older children you can also 3.4) vowels: "I", "A". You need to quickly come up with words that have these vowels. It can be complicated by agreeing that they should be in a certain order: “fox”, “willow”, “cornfield”, “nettle”, “titmouse”.
5. “Guess the homonyms”
Guess a couple of homonyms (words that sound the same and have different meanings) and describe: “It can be small and iron – noisy and wet” (“key”). What other homonyms can you think of? "Bow, weasel, brush, pen, mink, leaf, mouse, shop, braid, kiwi, fox".
6.
“What is right? « Name any feature - the other player must quickly list any items that match it: the more, the better. For example, you say "warm". What is suitable? “Compote”, “rain”, “hugs”, “wishes”, “battery”…
7. “Five words”
The main thing in this game is to keep a fast pace. The one who drives asks the question: "What can ... write?" The other player must quickly list 5 words: "Letter, essay, poetry, dictation, testament" . We change places: "What can be ... broken?" "Vase, cup, heart, ice, plate" .
8. "Confusion"
Name any word by confusing syllables or letters in it, the child's task is to guess and name correctly. "shokak - cat", "fonsmart - smartphone", "asmoronid - currant".
9. Alphabetically
You must list all the objects that you see around you, starting with the first letter of the alphabet. Everything on "A", then on "B", and so on.
For example, in an apartment it is "azalea", "mezzanine", "album", "arch", "baton", "balcony", "beads" ...
10. "Continue the word"
The leader calls any syllable, players take turns (as quickly as possible!) must continue it so that the word “ be- - birch, coast, insomnia, run, gasoline” ...
Read also:
10 finger games to prepare the hand for writing
8 games to develop attention
How to teach a child to play independently?
Photo: Olga Pedan, Bilibin Maksym, Maya Kruchankova/shutterstock.com
game development
Word games • Arzamas
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Author Lev Gankin
Primer “A. B. C. Trim, alphabet enchanté. Illustrations by Bertal. France, 1861 Wikimedia CommonsOral games
Associations
Game for a big company.
The host briefly leaves the room, during which time the rest decide which of those present they will guess (this may be the host himself). Upon returning, the player asks the others questions - what flower do you associate this person with, what vehicle, what part of the body, what kitchen utensils, etc. - in order to understand who is hidden. Questions can be very different - this is not limited by anything other than the imagination of the players. Since associations are an individual matter and an exact match may not happen here, it is customary to give the guesser two or three attempts. If the company is small, you can expand the circle of mutual acquaintances who are not present at that moment in the room, although the classic version of "associations" is still a hermetic game.
Game of P
A game for a company of four people, an interesting variation on the "hat" theme (see below), but does not require any special accessories. One player guesses a word to another, which he must explain to the others, but he can only use words starting with the letter "p" (any, except for the same root).
That is, the word "house" will have to be explained, for example, as follows: "I built - I live." If you couldn’t guess right away, you can throw up additional associations: “building, premises, space, the simplest concept ...” And at the end add, for example, “Perignon” - by association with Dom Perignon champagne. If the guessers are close to winning, then the facilitator will need comments like “about”, “approximately”, “almost right” - or, in the opposite situation: “bad, wait!”. Usually, after the word is guessed, the explainer comes up with a new word and whispers it into the ear of the guesser - he becomes the next leader.
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Primer "A.
B. C. Trim, alphabet enchanté. Illustrations by Bertal. France, 1861 Wikimedia Commons Say the Same Thing
An upbeat and fast-paced game for two, named after a video clip by the inventive rock band OK Go, from which many people learned about it (the musicians even developed a mobile application that helps to play it from a distance, although it is currently unavailable). The meaning of the game is that on the count of one-two-three each of the players pronounces a randomly chosen word. Further, the goal of the players is, with the help of successive associations, to come to a common denominator: for the next time, two or three, both pronounce a word that is somehow connected with the previous two, and so on until the desired coincidence occurs. Suppose the first player said the word "house" and the second player said the word "sausage"; in theory, they can coincide very soon, if on the second move after one-two-three both say "store". But if one says “shop”, and the other says “refrigerator” (why not a sausage house?), then the game can drag on, especially since it’s impossible to repeat - neither the store nor the refrigerator will fit, and you will have to think, say, before "refrigerator" or "IKEI".
If the original words are far from each other (for example, "curb" and "weightlessness"), then the gameplay becomes completely unpredictable.
Characters
A game for the company (the ideal number of players is from four to ten), which requires from the participants not only a good imagination, but also, preferably, a little bit of acting skills. As usual, one of the players briefly leaves the room, and while he is gone, the rest come up with a word, the number of letters in which matches the number of participants remaining in the room. Next, the letters are distributed among the players, and a character is invented for each of them (therefore, words that contain "b", "s" or "b" do not fit). Until the word is guessed, the players behave in accordance with the chosen character - the leader's task is to understand exactly what characters his partners portray and restore the hidden word. Imagine, for example, that a company consists of seven people. One leaves, the rest come up with a six-letter word "old man" and distribute roles among themselves: the first, say, will be with indoor, the second - t erpel, the third - a secondary, the fourth - p asylum, the fifth - and mane and the sixth - to ovary.
The returning player is greeted by a cacophony of voices - the company "lives" their roles until they are unraveled, and the host asks the players questions that help reveal their image. The only condition is that as soon as the presenter pronounces the correct character - for example, guesses the insidious one - he must admit that his incognito has been revealed and announce the number of his letter (in the word "old man" - the sixth).
Recognize the song
A game for a company of four to five people. The host leaves, and the remaining players choose a well-known song and distribute its words among themselves - each word. For example, the song “Let there always be sun” is guessed: one player gets the word “let”, the second - “always”, the third - “will be”, the fourth - “sun”. The host returns and begins to ask questions - the most varied and unexpected: "What is your favorite city?", "Where does the Volga flow?", "What to do and who is to blame?".
The task of the respondents is to use their own word in the answer and try to do it in such a way that it does not stand out too much; you need to answer quickly and not very extensively, but not necessarily truthfully. Answers to questions in this case can be, for example, “It’s hard for me to choose one city, but let today be Rio de Janeiro" or "Volga - into the Caspian, but this does not happen always , every third year it flows into the Black". The presenter must catch which word is superfluous in the answer and guess the song. They often play with lines from poetry rather than from songs.
Tip
A game for four people divided into pairs (in principle, there can be three or four pairs). The mechanics is extremely simple: the first player from the first pair whispers a word (a common noun in the singular) into the ear of the first player from the second pair, then they must take turns calling their associations with this word (in the same form - common nouns; cognate words cannot be used ).
After each association, the teammate of the player who voiced it calls out his word, trying to guess if it was originally guessed - and so on, until the problem is solved by someone; at the same time, all associations already sounded in the game can be used in the future, adding one new one at each move. For example, suppose there are players A and B on one team, and C and D on the other. Player A whispers the word "old man" into player C's ear. Player C says aloud to his partner D: "age". If D immediately answers "old man", then the pair of C and D scores a point, but if he says, for example, "youth", then the move goes to player A, who, using the word "age" suggested by C (but discarding the irrelevant to the case "youth" from D), says to his partner B: "age, man." Now B will probably guess the old man - and his team with A will already earn a point. But if he says "teenager" (thinking that it is about the age when boys turn into men), then C, to whom the move suddenly returned, will say " age, man, eightieth birthday”, and here, probably, “old man” will be guessed.
In one of the variants of the game, it is also allowed to "shout": this means that, having suddenly guessed what was meant, the player can shout out the option not on his turn. If he guessed right, his team will get a point, but if he rushed to conclusions, the team will lose a point. They usually play up to five points.
IPU
Game for a big company. Here we are forced to warn readers that, having seen this text in full, you will never be able to drive again - the game is one-time.
Spoiler →
First, the player who gets to drive leaves the room. When he returns, he must find out what MPS means - all that is known in advance is that the bearer of this mysterious abbreviation is present in the room right now. To find out the correct answer, the driver can ask other players questions, the answers to which should be formulated as “yes” or “no”: “Does he have blond hair?”, “Does he have blue eyes?”, “Is this a man?”, “He in jeans?", "Does he have a beard?"; moreover, each question is asked to a specific player, and not to all at once.
Most likely, it will quickly become clear that there is simply no person in the room who meets all the criteria; Accordingly, the question arises, according to what principle the players give answers. "Opening" this principle will help answer the main question - what is MPS. The Ministry of Railways is not the Ministry of Communications at all, but m oy p equal s seated (that is, each player always describes the person sitting to his right). Another option is COP, to then to answered to last (that is, everyone talks about who answered the previous question).
Contact
A simple game that can be played with a group of three or more people. One thinks of a word (noun, common noun, singular) and calls its first letter aloud, the task of the others is to guess the word, remembering other words with this letter, asking questions about them and checking if the presenter guessed.
The facilitator's task is not to reveal the next letters in the word to the players for as long as possible. For example, a word with the letter "d" is guessed. One of the players asks the question: “Is this by chance not the place where we live?” This is where the fun begins: the host must figure out as quickly as possible what the player means and say “No, this is not“ house ”” (well, or, if it was a“ house ”, honestly admit it). But in parallel, other players also think the same thing, and if they understand what “house” means before the leader, then they say: “contact” or “there is contact”, and start counting up to ten in chorus (while the count is going on, the presenter still has a chance to escape and guess what it is about!), and then they call the word. If at least two matched, that is, at the expense of ten they said “house” in chorus, the presenter must reveal the next letter, and the new guesser version will already begin with the now known letters “d” + the next one. If it was not possible to beat the host on this question, then the guessers offer a new option.
Of course, it makes sense to complicate the definitions, and not ask everything directly - so the question about "home" would sound better like "Is this not where the sun rises?" (with a reference to the famous song "House of the Rising Sun" by The Animals). Usually, the one who eventually gets to the searched word (names it or asks a question leading to victory) becomes the next leader.
Writing games
Encyclopedia
Not the fastest, but extremely exciting game for a company of four people - you will need pens, paper and some kind of encyclopedic dictionary (preferably not limited thematically - that is, TSB is better than a conditional "biological encyclopedia"). The host finds a word in the encyclopedia that is unknown to anyone present (here it remains to rely on their honesty - but cheating in this game is uninteresting and unproductive).
The task of each of the players is to write an encyclopedic definition of this word, inventing its meaning from the head and, if possible, disguising the text as a real small encyclopedic article. The presenter, meanwhile, carefully rewrites the real definition from the encyclopedia. After that, the “articles” are shuffled and read out by the presenter in random order, including the real one, and the players vote for which option seems most convincing to them. In the end, the votes are counted and points are distributed. Any player receives a point for correctly guessing the real definition and one more point for each vote given by other participants to his own version. After that, the sheets are distributed back and a new word is played out - there should be about 6-10 of them in total. You can also play this game in teams: come up with imaginary definitions collectively. The game "poems" is arranged in a similar way - but instead of a compound word, the host selects two lines from some little-known poem in advance and invites the participants to add quatrains.
Game from Inglourious Basterds
A game for a company of any size that many knew before the Quentin Tarantino film, but it does not have a single name. Each player invents a role for his neighbor (usually it is some famous person), writes it on a piece of paper and sticks the piece of paper on his neighbor's forehead: accordingly, everyone sees what role someone has, but does not know who they are. The task of the participants is, with the help of leading questions, the answers to which are formulated as “yes” or “no” (“Am I a historical figure?”, “Am I a cultural figure?”, “Am I a famous athlete?”), to find out who exactly they are. In this form, however, the game exhausts itself rather quickly, so you can come up with completely different themes and instead of famous people play, for example, in professions (including exotic ones - "carousel", "taxidermist"), in film and literary heroes (you can mix them with real celebrities, but it’s better to agree on this in advance), food (one player will be risotto, and the other, say, green cabbage soup) and even just items.
Bulls and cows
A game for two: one participant thinks of a word, and it is agreed in advance how many letters should be in it (usually 4-5). The task of the second is to guess this word by naming other four- or five-letter words; if some letters of the named word are in the hidden one, they are called cows, and if they have the same place inside the word, then these are bulls. Let's imagine that the word "eccentric" is conceived. If the guesser says “dot”, then he receives an answer from the second player: “three cows” (that is, the letters “h”, “k” and “a”, which are in both “eccentric” and “dot”, but in different places). If he then says "head of head", he will no longer get three cows, but two cows and one bull - since the letter "a" in both "eccentric" and "head" is in the fourth position. As a result, sooner or later, it is possible to guess the word, and the players can change places: now the first one will guess the word and count the bulls and cows, and the second one will name his options and track the extent to which they coincide with the one guessed.
You can also complicate the process by simultaneously guessing your own word and guessing the opponent's word.
Intellect
Writing game for the company (but you can also play together), consisting of three rounds, each for five minutes. In the first, players randomly type thirteen letters (for example, blindly poking a book page with their finger) and then form words from them, and only long ones - from five letters. In the second round, you need to choose a syllable and remember as many words as possible that begin with it, you can use single-root ones (for example, if the syllable "house" is selected, then the words "house", "domra", "domain", "domain", "brownie", "housewife", etc.). Finally, in the third round, the syllable is taken again, but now you need to remember not ordinary words, but the names of famous people of the past and present in which it appears, and not necessarily at the beginning - that is, both Karamzin and McCartney will fit the syllable "kar" , and, for example, Hamilcar.
An important detail: since this round provokes the most disputes and scams, game participants can ask each other to prove that this person is really a celebrity, and here you need to remember at least the profession and country. Typical dialogue: "What, you don't know Hamilcar? But this is a Carthaginian commander!” After each round, points are counted: if a particular word is the same for all players, it is simply crossed out, in other cases, players are awarded as many points for it as the opponents could not remember it. In the first round, you can still add points for especially long words. Based on the results of the rounds, it is necessary to determine who took the first, second, third and other places, and add up these places at the end of the game. The goal is to get the smallest number at the output (for example, if you were the winners of all three rounds, then you will get the number 3 - 1 + 1 + 1, and you are the champion; less cannot be purely mathematical).
B. C. Trim, alphabet enchanté. Illustrations by Bertal. France, 1861 Wikimedia Commons Frame
A game for any number of people, which was invented by one of the creators of the Kaissa chess program and the author of the anagram search program Alexander Bitman. First, the players choose several consonants - this will be the frame, the skeleton of the word. Then the time is recorded (two or three minutes), and the players begin to “stretch” vowels (as well as “й”, “ь”, “ъ”) onto the frame to make existing words. Consonants can be used in any order, but only once, and vowels can be added in any number. For example, players choose the letters "t", "m", "n" - then the words "fog", "cloak", "mantle", "coin", "darkness", "ataman", "dumbness" and other. The winner is the one who can come up with more words (as usual, these should be common nouns in the singular). The game can be played even with one letter, for example, "l". The words “silt”, “lay”, “yula”, “aloe”, “spruce” are formed around it, and if we agree that the letter can be doubled, “alley” and “lily”.
If the standard "framework" is mastered, then the task may be to compose a whole phrase with one consonant: a textbook example from the book by Evgeny Gik - "Bobby, kill the boy and beat the woman at the baobab."
Chain of words
Game for any number of players. Many people know it under the name "How to make an elephant out of a fly", and it was invented by the writer and mathematician Lewis Carroll, the author of "Alice". The “chain” is based on metagram words, that is, words that differ by only one letter. The task of the players is to turn one word into another with the least number of intermediate links. For example, let's make a "goat" from a "fox": FOX - LINDE - PAW - KAPA - KARA - KORA - GOAT. It is interesting to give tasks with a plot: so that the “day” turns into “night”, the “river” becomes the “sea”. The well-known chain, where the "elephant" grows out of the "fly", is obtained in 16 moves: FLY - MURA - TURA - TARA - KARA - KARE - CAFE - KAFR - MURDER - KAYUK - HOOK - URIK - LESSON - TERM - DRAIN - STON - ELEPHANT (example of Evgeny Gik).
For training, you can compete in the search for metagrams for any word. For example, the word "tone" gives "sleep", "background", "current", "tom", "tan" and so on - whoever scores more options wins.
Hat
A game for a company of four people, requiring simple equipment: pens, paper and a “hat” (an ordinary plastic bag will do). Sheets of paper need to be torn into small pieces and distributed to the players, the number of pieces depends on how many people are playing: the larger the company, the less for each. Players write words on pieces of paper (one for each piece of paper) and throw them into the "hat". There are also options here - you can play just with words (noun, common noun, singular), or you can play with famous people or literary characters. Then the participants are divided into teams - two or more people each; the task of each - in 20 seconds (or 30, or a minute - the timing can be set at your own choice) to explain to your teammates the largest number of words arbitrarily pulled out of the "hat", without using the same root.
If the driver could not explain a word, it returns to the hat and will be played by the other team. At the end of the game, the words guessed by different representatives of the same team are summed up, their number is counted, and the team that has more pieces of paper is awarded the victory. A popular version of the game: everything is the same, but in the first round the players explain the words (or describe the characters) orally, in the second round they show in pantomime, in the third round they explain the same words in one word. And recently a board game has appeared, where you need not only to explain and show, but also to draw.
Telegrams
Game for any number of players. The players choose a word, for each letter of which they will need to come up with a part of the telegram - the first letter will be the beginning of the first word, the second - the second, and so on. For example, the word "fork" is selected. Then the following message can become a telegram: “The camel is healed.
I'm flying a crocodile. Aibolit". Another round of the game is the addition of genres. Each player gets the task to write not one, but several telegrams from the same word - business, congratulatory, romantic (the types of messages are agreed in advance). Telegrams are read aloud, the next word is chosen.
even more different games for one or a company
Home games
Shadow theater, crafts and paper dolls from children's books and magazines of the XIX-XX centuries Ring and other games
Games from classic books
What do the heroes of the works of Nabokov, Lindgren and Milne play
A children's course on where games, jokes, horror stories and memes come from and why we need them
Children's room
Special project
Children's room Arzamas
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