Classroom Vocabulary games offer play-based learning approach to build literacy skills and kids’ vocabulary. An excellent way to boost language development in students, these fun vocabulary activities and games will have children learning new words, building their vocabulary skills and reading comprehension in no time.
Play based learning, like these Vocabulary games for the classroom, lead to positive classroom experience, higher student engagement besides boosting independent learning.
Make sure to include them in your classroom to boost their language skills. Kids can definitely play these vocabulary games within your home settings too with the friends and family.
Vocabulary Games For Classroom
1. Word Antakshari
Build vocabulary with this excellent game that will get students excited and compete with each other to bring out their best. Simple and easy to play, this fun classroom game for all grade levels uses strategy and vocabulary skills.
How to Play:
- Divide the class into two teams.
- Call out a student from each team to play stone-paper-scissor to decide which team will go first. Assign a random letter to that team and ask them to come up with a word using that letter.
- The other team has to make vocabulary word from the ending letter of the word the first team made. The game continues with each team making words from the ending letter. In case, a team is unable to make a word from their ending letter, they can pass, giving a point to the other team.
- The first team to earn 5 points wins the game.
2. Vocabulary Squares
This is a competitive game that will challenge your students to make as many correct words as possible. Hand out vocabulary square sheets to each student (or group) and let them find as many words as possible with the adjoining letters in the square.
Vocabulary Squares
Combinations can be made with letters touching horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. Each correct word must be at least three letters long. The team/students who make the most letters in 2 minutes wins the game!
3. Word Charades
How about charades with vocabulary words? Played like the regular charades, in this classroom vocabulary game the player can describe the given word using synonyms, adjectives and definitions.
Sounds easy but wait till you try! Word Charades will encourage kids to come up with fun descriptions and related vocabulary words without mentioning the given word.
Quick Tip: Check these wonderful Charade Ideas to make the game fun!
4. Guess The Word
Turn your students into word detectives with this easy game. Each student gets a ‘Guess The Word’ sheet and fills in the clues – parts of speech, definition, synonym and antonym and leave the word and the sentence box empty. Once they have filled their sheets, they exchange it with their neighbouring students to guess the word.
Turn it into a vocabulary game for high school by making it into a minute-to-win challenge after the sheets have been exchanged.
Guess The Word
5. DIY Crossword
Crosswords are time-tested vocabulary activities that work at language and deduction skills. Include them in your classroom for a fun vocabulary activity. All you need to do is make the list of words and turn it into a crossword using a free online crossword generator.
Choose a theme for the crossword, you can pick the lesson you are currently doing in class or integrate science topics like plants, cells etc to make it an inter-disciplinary activity.
Quick Tip: Add humour to these classroom vocabulary activities with Teacher Jokes!
6. Rebus Puzzles
These picture puzzles are a great way to work on cognitive skills while polishing spelling and vocabulary. Let your students play a round of Rebus puzzles as a warm up to language class or simply include them in your morning routine.
7. Vocabulary Bingo
Bingo is a versatile game and this version is adapted to teach vocabulary to kids. Make a word list according to the grade level and ask them to fill out their bingo cards with their chosen words.
Once they fill their bingo cards, call out random words from the word list or their synonyms. The first child to cross five words in rows/columns/diagonal wins the game!
Vocabulary Bingo
This vocabulary activity is suited for all grade levels and can be easily customised for any age group, making it a perfect vocabulary activity for classroom and homeschooling.
8. Name Three
Name Three is a fun vocabulary activity that you can easily sneak into your classroom routine. Though it sounds simple, it gets challenging to pen down words within 5 minutes.
What we love is how easily it can be played across various grade level. For high school students, make it into a minute to win it vocabulary challenge!
Name Three Vocab Challenge
9. Pop Balloons
Encourage students to learn and read new words through this vocabulary “pop balloon game.” This collaborative classroom game is sure to get students excited and make language class a big hit!
What you need:
- 4-5 Balloons (keep spare balloons with you!) per story
- Printed stories.
- 4-5 sheets.
How To Play:
- Choose stories that your students are familiar with! If you are splitting the class into five groups, choose five different stories!
- Each story should be on a different color paper. The colors will split students into five groups.
- When typing the story on a paper, ensure you choose to highlight the main events only. Change the vocabulary words of the story to help kids learn new synonyms of the words used in the story.
- Make paper strips out of the story page and roll them up.
- Add only one strip to each balloon.
- Each kid gets to pop one balloon! They will divide themselves depending on the color strip they find inside.
- Once all the balloons pop, it’s time for groups to rearrange the story and put it in the right order.
- Whichever team assembles the story first wins the game!
Quick Tip: Gamify maths with Math Classroom Games.
10. Multi-syllable Puzzle
Incorporate new vocabulary word for each day or word of the week with this fun idea! Inspired by unscramble, this game uses cutouts of multi-syllable words and challenges kids to assemble the cutouts to make the word.
This vocabulary game for grade 4 is perfect to teach bigger words.
11. Newspaper Detective
Another vocabulary game for grade 4 and above that blends in creativity and imagination, Newspaper Detective will have students create a word-cum-picture collage for their chosen word. This clever game will not only boost their vocabulary but also get them to read newspapers.
Assign a word to every child or simply work with the word of the week and challenge them to make a collage using newspaper. They must look out for the word’s synonyms, pictures describing the word and even antonyms.
12. Basketball Vocabulary Game.
This fun game will engage students competitively to make words in the least time possible. The challenge is to win the letters first by scoring goals. The more goals you score by tossing the ball into a clean bin, the more letters you win.
How To Play:
- Write down letters on chits and place them in a bowl. Kids will pick them to earn random letters as they score.
- Split class into teams. Teams take turns to send one player at a time to goal and win letters to make words. Each player will get 10-20 seconds to shoot the ball into the bin. The number of goals = The number of letters your team receives in that round. For example: if the player tosses the ball into the basket 5 times, they get to pick five letters.
- The challenge is to make a word using all the letters earned. The first team to make a word using all the letters from the chits wins the game.
The game gets trickier if more rounds are played as the number of letters increases.
13. Hot Seat
Teaching vocabulary in the classroom cannot get more fun than this! One of the most exciting & flexible classroom vocabulary games for all grade levels, Hot Seat is all about guessing the word right.
How To Play:
- Split the class into two teams.
- Put two chairs facing the respective teams. This is the “hot seat” of each team.
- One student from each team comes forward to take the hot seat.
- Once the hot seat is occupied, write a word for each team on the blackboard. Students on the hot seat cannot look at the blackboard and have to guess the words correctly right from the hints provided by their team. Whoever guesses first wins a point.
- The game continues until all students have had their chance in the hot seat. The team with the highest score wins the game.
14. Word Graffiti
One of the most loved vocabulary activities for kindergarteners and older kids, Word Graffiti promotes collaboration and creativity.
It can be played solo or in groups. Assign a word to each group/student and give them a blank paper. Kids must think out of the box to draw, illustrate and write about the assigned word.
15. Describe Characters!
One of the best vocabulary games for kindergarteners and older kids, this one will spark their imagination to come up with the most words to describe their chosen character.
How To Play:
- Read a fun story to the class.
- Let each kid choose a character from the story they’d like to describe using adjectives and new words.
Quick Tip: Read these marvellous STEM Books for Kids for this activity.
16. Fancy Nancy With Literature Books
This is a super-fun classroom game that clubs theatrics, pretend-play skills with vocabulary activity. The activity helps students learn formal and fancier words for their conversations to sound more confident, professional, and intellectual!
How To Play:
- Get a big sheet! Drawing Fancy Nancy in the center is optional, but creativity makes learning fun!
- Read literature/absurd word books with kids and let them choose their favorite fancy words.
- Discuss the meaning of all words and let them use it in a sentence.
- Improvising as posh characters is a fun activity to intrigue your kids!
- Prepare a whole skit with fancy words and let kids act it out in a British accent for more fun!
First student: Pardon me, Sir!
Second student: Can you assist us in finding this address?
Third student: It will be a pleasure, my ladies! Might I add, you both look exquisite!
First and second student: Why? Thank you! We were told to be cautious in the city, but people here are amiable, not to forget, the city is immaculate.
Fourth student: Yes, you will be enthralled!
Fifth student: Aah, this restaurant! It’s exceptional!
Sixth student: Serves the most appetizing/delectable main course. Please, take a left, then a right… and there you have it!
First student: What a gentleman! We’ll get going then!
Seventh student: We hope you enjoy every inch of this colossal city.
17. Switch On The Mute Button
This activity is a unique and great tool to let kids realise why learning vocabulary is crucial in our day-to-day lives.
In this activity, students don’t use words at all! Instead, they turn on the mute button for 30 minutes (or more, if you’d like) and go zip. For this 30-minute activity, kids don’t express themselves through words; they can only translate what they want to say through actions.
The activity is fun because kids are naturally hilarious and dramatic while expressing themselves through actions, but soon they will realize how difficult it gets when you don’t have words to back your sentiments.
Pretend you don’t understand what the kids are trying to express right away to emphasise the chosen lesson “Importance of words!”
18. Relate To Me: Acrostic Poem.
Acrostic Poem is another vocabulary activity that gets students into creative mode. Encourage students to think of new vocabulary words instead of usual ones by taking help of thesaurus.
19. I Spy With My Little Eye
This is one of the most fun classroom vocabulary games for kindergarteners. The objective of the game is to guess the object being described.
Divide the class into teams. Give out clues describing the object to each team. If they guess it right, they earn a point. If they don’t, the other team can try to guess the object.
The team with the most points wins the game.
20. Finish After Me
This is probably our favorite game of all. It is a fast paced, quick -thinking game that gets super competitive and hilarious once it speeds up! The idea is to think of all the words possible with the designated letter before hopping on to the next letter in the alphabet.
Let the students sit in a big circle and play this game. The rule is simple: no words can be repeated.
For example: Start the game with letter A and students take turns, in clockwise motion, to speak out a word starting from letter ‘A’.
Like Alright<Amateur<Aristocrat<Apple<Alien<Airplane<Airlines… and continue until nobody can think of a word starting with “A”. That’s when the game shifts to the alphabet “B”.
21. Vocabulary Wheel Game.
This vocabulary game for grade 2 and above is super fun and sure to sneak in literacy and language skills. Make a word list according to the grade level and write the words down on ice-cream sticks.
Vocabulary Wheel
Each child picks up an ice-cream stick with a word on it and spins the vocabulary wheel to perform the task wherever the wheel stops.
22. A to Z
One of the best ways to sneak in vocabulary, this game puts students to the ultimate test of coming up with vocabulary words from A to Z but related to a specific topic.
It can be easily adapted to any grade level by choosing a relevant topic. If you are planning a classroom vocabulary game for kindergarteners, think of topics like animals, playthings etc. For grade 3, the topic could be nature, neighbourhood and so on. You can even incorporate lesson based themes for older grades.
FAQ
1. Vocabulary Squares
2. Fancy Nancy with literature books
3. Hot Seat
4. Basketball vocabulary game
5. Newspaper Detective
