Writing games for 5th graders
Fun Writing Games to Encourage Your Kids to Write
No one ever said that parenting was easy, especially if you’re one of those parents who is struggling with helping their kids with school work. Many children are not fans of writing or any activities that involve writing. Luckily for you, this list is a lot of different and exciting writing games to create a love of writing in your kids so they can write more and have fun doing it.
1. Telephone Pictionary
This game is really engaging and will promote creativity with your children while at the same time pushing them to write. If you have more players it will go better, and all you need is paper and pencils. Every player simply writes a sentence on the paper and passes the paper on. The next player will draw what is represented by the sentence and fold down the paper so only the drawing is visible, then passes the sheet.
The next player will write a sentence that describes the drawing and fold the sheet to keep only their sentence visible. The paper keeps going around in this way until it’s full. Then, all players can compare the original sentence with what happened later for laughs.
2. Story Telling
In this game, you also only need paper and pencils, and all kids will get to write a story together. Onboard, you can write the first sentence of the tale. Then, over the next two minutes, the children will write down the next step of the story. After two minutes, their paper goes to someone else who will continue the story. These papers go around a few times until such time as the story is done. Then, you can enjoy sharing the different and funny stories that were created.
3. Fill in the Blanks
For this game, you need some story sheets with blank spots. According to Rick Steele, an educator at Academized and Ox Essays, “to play, you just have to give the sheet to your child and they will fill in the blanks however they want by using their imagination. Then, you can read the finished story together afterward.
”
It can be difficult to get your children to write if they don’t like it, but there’s a lot of writing games that can make the process more exciting.
4. Birthday Cards
Every time there is a family birthday or special event, or during the holidays, you can get your children to write the birthday card. This will make them speak their thoughts about their family members as well as encouraging them to write in the process.
5.Cursive Name Writing
This game can be exciting to learn to write in cursive. You can take a sheet and fold it in half. Ask your children to write their names in cursive in large script, along the top of the folded crease. They can trace over the writing time and time again, then they can go over the folded piece until they create a mirror image on the other side of the sheet. Then they can cut out their names until the writing looks like a large bug.
6. Challenge for Vocabulary Terms
This game is better for children that can write comfortably and are more than six years old.
You can give your child a new word and tell them what the meaning is. Then, Henrietta Fillon, a tutor at Big Assignments and Elite Assignment Help, says “you can challenge them to write a sentence with the new word in it. You can also ask your child to write a complete story about this word if you have time for it. You can also ask for drawings if they don’t enjoy writing much.”
7. Comic Strip Fun
This activity is better for older children who already know how to read and write, especially if they like storytelling. You can get some comic strips for your children and ask them to fill out the dialogue bubbles (which should be blank, to begin with). Then, challenge them to make it more exciting. They can also draw with crayons to make more colors and liven up the comic strip.
It can be difficult to get your children to write if they don’t like it, but there’s a lot of writing games that can make the process more exciting. By spending time with your children to focus on learning to write, they will prosper and learn to enjoy writing.
About the author: Ellie Coverdale, a writer for UK Writings and Essayroo, shares her thoughts and opinions on education and writing. She loves fostering a desire to read and write in children and stresses the importance of writing skills for all people, regardless of age. In her spare time, she teaches writing skills for Boom Essays.
5 Writing Games Your Kids Will Love
This week’s Homeschool Help topic is “Help! My child hates writing!”
My suggestion whenever a child hates anything is to take a complete break from the current routine and have some fun.
The writing games I’m sharing here are not the kind you find on educational websites or in books of writing “games”. {A quick search of those resources turns up a list of exercises I’d rather gnaw off my own writing-hand than have to endure.}
Here you will find genuinely fun games that adults will enjoy playing as much as children.
In fact several have been enjoyed by adults since Victorian times or even earlier. My mildly dyslexic and dysgraphic son adores them too.
Something the first four games have in common is that they cannot be played without writing. (Contrast these with some “learning games” which begin with a reasonably promising premise and then have every drop of joy wrung out of them by the introduction of an inauthentic and completely unnecessary writing requirement.)
1. Consequences
Each player starts with a blank sheet of paper and pencil. We use A4 (letter) size, portrait orientation.
The game works best with three or more players, but we have played with two on occasion.
How to play
At the very top of the paper, each player writes the name of a male. They might choose a historical figure, a cartoon or nursery rhyme character, a pet, a famous actor or even someone in the room.
Each player then folds down the top of their paper to conceal what they’ve written, and passes it to the player on their left.
Each player then writes down the name of a female on the paper that’s just been passed to them. Then everyone folds over and passes their paper again.
Continue writing and passing papers in this way until each paper contains the following:
- male character
- female character
- where they met
- he said:
- she said:
- what happened in the end (the eponymous consequence)
Once the consequence has been written, everyone unfolds the paper they’re holding and takes turns reading their story aloud (usually accompanied by loud guffaws).
Varations
I’ve described Consequences as we’ve always enjoyed playing it. You can, of course, modify it however you choose.
A popular variation is to add one of more adjectives before each of the male and female characters. You might also add adverbs before “he said” and “she said”.
Personal experiences
I just love it when Ghengis Kahn meets Anne of Green Gables on one of Saturn’s rings and they end up inventing a time machine so they can help build the leaning Tower of Pisa.
Or when Little Miss Muffet warns our postman to, “Watch out for low-flying hedgehogs heading this way!”
We played a version of Consequences at my baby shower when I was pregnant with C(9). I still chuckle when I look back on the scenarios my friends came up with for our baby.
2. Telephone Pictionary
Like Consequences, each player starts with a blank sheet of paper and a pencil.
How to play
Each person writes a phrase or sentence at the top of their page, then passes it to the player on their left.
Each player now draws what’s written on the page they’ve just received. Then they fold down the paper so that only their picture shows, and papers are passed to the left again.
Next, each player writes a phrase or sentence describing the picture they’ve just been given. Then fold down papers again to reveal only the last piece of writing, and pass papers again.
Keep going until there’s no room for any more pictures, then unfold the pages.
Have fun comparing each original sentence with the final drawing and then following the metamorphosis in between.
Telephone Pictionary Tips
Like Consequences, Telephone Pictionary becomes more enjoyable the more you play it, as players intuitively discover what makes for the most entertaining denouements.
Bad drawing helps. Anyone too good at drawing should be sat next to someone with a talent for imaginative interpretation!
Any child who can read and have a go at writing can enjoy Telephone Pictionary. I don’t worry about spelling – children will naturally want to write legibly and spell accurately to communicate their meaning, but if they have to give a whispered translation to the player to their left, it’s okay.
3. Telephone Oracle
This one can be played by all ages but will yield more entertaining results with slightly older children.
Once again, begin with papers and pencils all round.
How to play
Each player writes a question they want the Oracle to answer at the top of their page.
Papers are then passed to the left, and each player makes up an answer to the question they have been given.
Players then fold the top of their papers over, concealing the original question, and pass papers round to the left again.
This time, each player makes up a possible question which could be answered by the answer they see written on their paper.
Players fold down and pass papers round again, and answer the question they see written.
Continue to the bottom of the page, ending on an answer.
At the end, each player unfolds their paper and reads out first the original question and final answer, and then the in-between steps.
Telephone Oracle Tips
The more off-the-wall, yet detailed, the questions and answers, the better this game is.
Kids will intuit this as they play and strive to come up with increasingly creative and linguistically complex questions and answers.
Check out Deep Fun’s Parlour Games for a hilarious example from an actual game of Telephone Oracle.
4. Mad Libs
The template story game Mad Libs involves slightly less actual writing than the above games, but it compensates by requiring players to provide specific parts of speech.
And the resulting stories are equally entertaining.
Handwritten Mad Libs
You can buy books of Mad Libs (we have Kids’ Mad Libs and Best of Mad Libs) or print off your own for free from one of these websites.
Mad Libs online
If you’re not bothered about your kids writing by hand, you can find plenty of Mad Libs online:
It’s a Mad Libs World
Mad Takes
Word Blanks
There’s even a Mad Libs iPad app.
Find out more about how Mad Libs was created, and how an eavesdropped conversation led to its unusual name, at Wikipedia.
5. Love letters
This one’s not a game so much as a simple and lovely ritual.
Write a short note to your child and leave it on her pillow. Thank her for something helpful she’s done recently, acknowledge her for something (tangible or intangible) she’s been working on, or tell her how much you enjoyed doing something with her.
End your note saying that you’d love a reply if your child feels inspired to write one. If you he does, write back in a day or so. If not, write to him again anyway. Show your child how special it can be to communicate by hand-written letters.
Variations
Each person could pick the name of another family member to write to out of a hat. Rotate so that everyone writes to each other family member.
Photo: LittleStuff.Me
Brave Writer’s Julie Bogart wrote this week that, “Format writing teaches kids to solve the ‘puzzle’ of the assignment rather than teaching kids to tap into their writing voices.”
This is one of the reasons I don’t do any formal format writing with my elementary-aged kids. Instead we use freewriting, conversation and games that encourage them to connect with their inner voices.
What I like about the writing games listed here is that the “puzzle” is to have as much fun as possible. This playful state fosters creativity and self-expression – both essential components of writing.
I’d love to hear from you if you try out any of these games.
And do please let me know of any goodies I’ve left out!
For more fun writing ideas see Unschooling Writing.
To read the other Homeschool Help ladies’ views on writing, head over to:
Highhill Education – Motivating Kids to Write
One Magnificent Obsession – When Writing Brings Tears
Every Bed of Roses – Teaching Composition {Language Arts}
Barefoot Hippie Girl – Cultivating a Love of Writing
Hammock Tracks – Tips to Help Non Writers Lose their Hate
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I’m appreciatively linking up here:
Hip Homeschool Hop
Entertaining and Educational
Collage Friday
Weekly Wrap-Up
90,000 games on paper for two or more: Rules for 22 gamesContent
- Simple games on a sheet of paper
- DRISSISS
- Treasure Map
- CLASS
- 9000
- Cross-tanks 9000
- Balda
- Silent artist
- Bulls and cows
- Capturing the field
- Strategy games on paper for two or more
- Sea battle
- Scrabble
- Code of
- bridges
- Scessions
- Snake
- Troomino
- Games on a piece of paper with letters
- Games on paper - a selection of books
- National games on paper
Games on paper: For children and adults, simple and complex, creative and strategic, fun and educational.
New games from around the world that you have not heard of!
Life with children can be boring or fun, and it does not depend on any external circumstances! nine0003
Zhenya Katz "Games for Beginner Moms"
Simple games on a sheet of paper
Drawings
The player thinks of a picture and draws part of it, and then passes it on to another player.
Treasure map
You need to draw a schematic plan of the apartment - a treasure map and indicate the place where the treasure is hidden.
Chain
Enrich vocabulary, develop imagination and laugh a lot! We take a word of 3-4 letters and, changing 1 letter at a time, we turn it into others, and so on, until it turns out. The chain can turn out from 3-5 to 50 words. And then, according to the recorded words, we compose a story. Impossible not to laugh, checked! nine0003
Many words
Choose 1 long word and use its letters to make many short words.
Whoever has more - he won!
Tic-tac-toe
An old unforgotten game. To make it more interesting, play on a large field - 4*4 or 5*5 cells.
Doodles
The game stimulates the imagination. One draws any squiggle with his own color, and the second turns it into anything with the help of fantasy.
Troika
Tic-tac-toe game, only with letters. On the 3 * 3 field, two players put any one letter each, and the one who, by the end of the game (when all the fields are filled), will be able to write diagonally, vertically or horizontally more well-known words of 3 letters wins. nine0003
Balda
A square playing field is drawn on a piece of paper with 5*5 cells for the word BALDA or another number of cells corresponding to the number of letters in another word. Write a word in the middle row. Players take turns making moves. In one move, a letter is entered into a free cell in such a way that a new word is formed each time.
Words can be read in any direction.
For each word, the player receives as many points as there are letters in the word. The game ends when all the cells are filled with letters or none of the players can come up with a new word. nine0003
Silent artist
Develop imagination and associative thinking! Non-reading children receive an oral task from their mother: how would you depict a holiday (lake, mirror, mother cat, stars)? The drawing needs a schematic, only a contour, the main thing is figurative thinking.
The older the child, the less specific the words are - not “pan”, but “dinner”, not “five in the diary”, but “end of the quarter”. You will be surprised how interesting children's thinking works!
We prepare leaflets with an arbitrary number of words (difficulty by age) and draw, and then guess. nine0003
A game without competition, the main thing is to convey the meaning.
Bulls and cows
The player thinks of a four-digit number. All digits in the number must be different.
His opponent must guess the number. Each time he also calls a four-digit number with different digits. If the figure from the named number is in the guessed number - this is a cow. If the figure from the named number is in the guessed number and stands in the same place - this is a bull.
Capturing the field
In addition to a piece of paper and a pen, this game will require a dice or two (to speed up the game and develop quick addition skills in children). The first player rolls the dice(s), adds up the numbers that have fallen (if there are 2 dice) and paints as many squares on his playing field as he received as a result. nine0003
The first person to color all the squares wins. You can also play 3 dice! Those already familiar with the multiplication table can play with multiplication instead of addition!
Paper strategy games for two or more
Naval battle
The goal of the game is to sink all enemy ships. We arrange the ships and "shoot" in turn.
Ships are placed on a field of 10*10 cells. The letters and numbers along the sides of the square are the coordinates. Each player has 10 ships: 4 one-deck (1 cell), 3 two-deck (2 cells), 2 three-deck (3 cells), 1 four-deck (4 cells). There must be at least 1 empty space between ships. nine0003
The second similar field is drawn for clarity of "shooting" at the enemy's field. The player names the coordinates, for example, "K5", the enemy honestly answers: "past", "wounded" or "killed". The victim shoots again. The one who misses passes the right to shoot to the enemy.
Scrabble
The game is widely known in the world under the name Scrabble. From separate letters it is necessary to make words and put them on the field. You can buy a field for playing Scrabble or play on a piece of paper.
Knight move
We work with logic and spatial thinking! We teach a child how a chess horse walks. We draw a small field of play on a sheet in a cage. We start the game from any cell: “we walk”, we take turns putting a cross in a cell one after another (older - numbers from 1 to .
..), while it is possible to walk.
First, you can show the trajectory, then the child can already “draw” it in his mind. Task: fill the field as much as possible. With older children - who will have nowhere to go - lost.
Bridges
The players are trying to build a bridge from one side of their bank to the other. Red has red shores and crosses as stones, Green has green shores and zeros. The game can start anywhere on the field.
In one move, a player can connect two adjacent stones with a vertical or horizontal bridge. Red and green bridges must not intersect. The winner is the one who builds a continuous bridge from one of its banks to the other.
Lines
It is necessary to put several points on a sheet of paper (at least 8, the more the more interesting). Two players play by connecting any two points in turn with a line segment. You cannot capture the 3rd point, and each point can be the end of only one segment. The segments must not intersect.
The one who cannot make a move loses. nine0003
Dots
This is a paper strategy game for two or four people. The goal of the game is to connect the drawn lines into squares. The player who draws the most squares wins.
It is necessary to create a field of dots, 10*10 is enough to start with. But you can play with any field. Each player takes turns drawing lines by connecting 2 adjacent dots.
As soon as the player finishes the square, he fills the square with his color or puts his sign inside and can make one more move. nine0003
Snake
Two players must use different colored pens or pencils. A square of arbitrary size is drawn, for example, 9*9 cells. 2 sides of one color and 2 of another. Each player chooses points and begins to draw his snake, lengthening it alternately by 2 cells in one move. You cannot walk diagonally and cross your own or someone else's snake. You can lead the snake on the side of the opposite color. The one who cannot make a move will lose.
Tromino
This is a simple pen and paper puzzle that trains visual perception and spatial reasoning. The goal of the game is to be the last player to successfully place a tromino on the game board.
Tromino is a figure consisting of three squares connected by sides. You can either play straight pieces only, corner pieces only, or both versions at the same time.
The goal of the game is to be the last player to place a tromino on the board, thereby blocking the opponent's ability to play. nine0003
Read more about the tromino game in the next article.
Games on a sheet of paper with letters
Games on paper - a selection of books
Games on a sheet of paper published by Bely Gorod. A whole encyclopedia and almost a complete collection of such books! To the labyrinth
Games on paper. Tic-tac-toe, sea battle, dots and segments - a budget book by the Phoenix publishing house, in Chitai-gorod.
National games on paper
When these strategic games were played on the ground or sand with stones, sticks, flowers, etc.
These days, playing has become easier, but no less interesting. nine0003
Dara is a cool match 3 game from North West Africa. The goal of the game is to capture your opponent's tokens so that he can no longer place his tokens at three in a row . Read more here.
Tiger and Leopards or Len Choa is a traditional game from Thailand in which a tiger (hunter) fights six leopards (victims). The tiger tries to catch the leopard by jumping over it (as in checkers).
The leopards are trying to surround the tiger and block it so that it cannot move. The game is dynamic, there is not enough pen and paper for it - chips are also needed (coins, buttons, scraps of paper - whatever). About the strategy of the game here. nine0003
Fox and Geese is a traditional board game from Northern Europe. This is a variation of Halatafl, a Viking board game mentioned in the early Icelandic sagas. Read more here.
Korean game Kono resembles Chinese checkers. Objective: Move quickly across the board and place all of your pieces on the dots previously owned by your opponent. Description of the game
What kind of paper games for children do you know? What games did you play as a child? nine0003
10 paper games - Let's play together! — LiveJournal
In our childhood there were a lot of different games, most of them we just kept in our heads, the rules were passed on to each other during the game. Many of these games were played with just a pair of pencils or pens and a piece of paper.
Paper games can safely be called the most intelligent and developing. And now they are forgotten quite undeservedly. It is worth teaching children to play these games, and they can always be occupied on a long road or in rainy weather at home and in the country. nine0003
1. Tic-tac-toe
This is the most famous of these games.
For her, paper is not always needed, just a foggy window pane in a minibus or a couple of twigs and sand underfoot ...
A playing field is drawn 3 by 3 cells (9 cells in total). Players take turns making moves by placing a cross or a zero in an empty cell. Purpose of the game: to build a line of 3 crosses or zeroes horizontally, vertically or diagonally. It is extremely difficult to win in this game, basically the game comes down to a draw and more than one game is played. nine0226 But still there are certain combinations of moves that lead to victory. ))
When you get tired of playing on a small field, you can increase the field or not limit it at all. On such a field, players take turns making moves until someone manages to line up a line of five characters horizontally, vertically or diagonally.
2. Battleship
This is one of the most favorite games of our childhood. ))
I think everyone remembers the rules. And for those who do not remember, we will remind.
This game is for two. nine0226 The goal of the game is to sink all enemy ships. Ships are located on 2 square fields measuring 10 by 10 cells. You place ships on your field and the enemy strikes at them. And on the other field, the enemy has his ships. Each player has an equal number of ships - 10 pieces:
Single-deck (1-cell size) 4 pieces
Double-deck (2-cell size) 3 pieces
Three-deck (3-cell size) 2 pieces
Four-deck (4-cell size) 1 piece nine0226 When placing ships on the field, it must be taken into account that there must be at least one empty cell between them; ships cannot be placed close to each other.
During his turn, the player selects a cell on the opponent's field and "shoots", calling its coordinates "a1", for example. At the same time, he marks his move on his additional field. If you sank the enemy ship, then the opponent must say “killed”, if you wounded the ship (that is, you hit a ship with more than one deck), then the opponent must say “wounded”.
If you hit the opponent's ship, you continue to "shoot". nine0226 The game ends when all ships of one of the players are "sunk".
3. Tanchiki
The game requires an A4 sheet folded in half (you can take any notebook sheet). Two players draw 10 tanks each on their own half of the sheet. Having finished the alignment of forces, the players begin to “shell” each other in this way: the shot is drawn in their own half of the field, then the sheet is folded in the middle and the shot, visible through the light, is marked in the second half of the field. If the shot hit the tank, then it is considered "knocked out" and one more additional shot is needed to destroy it. If the player hit the tank directly, then one shot is enough. nine0226 Each successful shot entitles the player to the next shot. To complicate the game, you can introduce a ban on the next shot at a freshly knocked out tank.
4. Hands
Even small children who are already familiar with numbers can play this game.
It will help you learn how to quickly navigate the numbers and concentrate.
For the game, you will need two sheets of paper in a cage, on each sheet the player circles his palm. Now, in the space bounded by the drawing, numbers from 1 to ... are randomly arranged here. Here you need to agree in advance. Next, the game begins. One player calls an arbitrary number, while the other tries to find this number on his palm, while the first player quickly puts crosses in the cells on his sheet, starting from the top left cell. The winner is the one who quickly fills all the cells of his field with crosses. nine0003
5. Points and lines.
The conditions of this game on paper are simple: put a few dots on a sheet of paper (at least 8, and preferably at least 15). Two players play by connecting any two points in turn with a line segment. You cannot capture the 3rd point, and each point can be the end of only one segment. The segments must not intersect. The one who cannot make a move loses.
In the figures you can see the correct connection of the dots.
and incorrect
6. Dots
We played this game at the institute during boring lectures. It develops tactical and strategic thinking.
The playing field is an ordinary sheet of paper in a box, if there is a lot of time and patience, you can play on a whole notebook spread. The playing field can be circled with a line and forbid by the rules to put dots on this border. Each player must have a pen or pencil of their own color. Players take turns putting dots in random places at the intersection of cells. nine0226 The goal of the game is to capture as many paper possessions as possible. A territory is considered captured if it is surrounded by dots of its color. The dots must be spaced one cell apart horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. The captured territory is painted over with its own color or a fortress wall is drawn around it (thick line). If you managed to encircle the territory or points of the enemy with dots, they are yours.
After such a capture, the player is granted the right of an extraordinary move. In some versions of the game, you can capture only those territories where there are already enemy fortifications. In others, any land is available to you, including free ones. Choose what you like best. At the end of the game, the size of the occupied lands is calculated and the winner is declared. Most often, there is no need to specifically count anything - the result is obvious. nine0226 Can also be played with younger children. In this case, the playing field should be made quite small - a quarter of a notebook page or even less, and take paper with large cells.
7. Numbers
Did you play such a game on a notebook in a box at school or institute? We played half of the hostel. ))) I held on for a long time, but then I plunged into it with my head, but an hour home on the train flew by unnoticed.
It was called differently: numbers, numbers, seeds, 19, but the meaning of this did not change.
You write out the numbers from 1 to 19 in a row, in a line up to 9, and then you start the next line, in each cell, 1 digit. Then you cross out paired numbers or giving a total of 10. One condition - the pairs must be next to or through the crossed out numbers horizontally or vertically. And after you have crossed out all possible pairs, you rewrite the remaining numbers at the end. The goal is to completely cross out all the numbers.
8. Hangman
A bit inhumane game, but still. As a child, we combined the yard game of Cossack robbers with the "gallows"!.
The meaning of this game is to guess the word by letter in a certain number of moves.
One player thinks of some word (simple and short to begin with). He writes his first and last letters, and instead of the missing letters we put dashes. The task of the second player is to guess the hidden word. He names a letter. If this letter is in the word, we enter it in its place. If not, then we write the letter to the side so as not to repeat ourselves, and we begin to draw the "gallows" - a vertical line.
With the next error - horizontal (it turns out something like the letter g). Then a rope, a loop, a man's head, a torso, arms and legs are drawn. For these several attempts, the player must guess the word. If it didn't work out, you lost. If he had time, it was his turn to think of a word. nine0003
9. Balda
Another game with words. Here you can play with two, three or even one.
A square playing field with 5x5 cells is drawn on a sheet of paper, for example. In the middle row we write a word of five letters. Players take turns making moves. In one move, a letter is entered into a free cell in such a way that a new word is formed each time. Words can be read in any direction except diagonal. For each word, the player receives as many points as there are letters in the word. Words are written on the side of the field so that other players do not repeat them. The game ends when all the cells are filled with letters or none of the players can come up with a new word.
