Somehow, I never seem to think about this until after I've played word games with him.
We are in the midst of Blizzard 2010 round two and spent the day doing all sorts of family fun activities. Things like making pancakes, watching a movie, playing with toys, having meltdowns and playing games. This afternoon, we played Boggle.
Such fun!
Such an education!
If you are going to play such a game with Jay, you better be sure to have a dictionary nearby. Some of the new vocab words today (these weren't all new to me, but a few of them definately were)...
bole
lest
lea
yelp
sheared
pelt
pone
gory
Please someone else admit that they had no idea that bole and lea were both real words. Of course, now I can feel all smart because I know their definitions. :-)
Rock surprised us with a few words as well, and Mag even tossed one in there...nay. Although she was thinking of Neigh and was a bit disappointed when I told her it was spelled incorrectly. My brain was thinking the same as hers. Jay saved the day. He brought back her smile, when he told her that nay is also a word and counts for a point. Yay, Jay!
The best part? They think it was a snow-day...little do they know it certainly counts for school work. I love when I can find creative ways for my kids to learn and that it can count as school. I bet they learned more from that game than they would have from just doing a vocab page...and even better it stretches beyond worksheets and goes to teamwork, competition, recognizing we all have different strengths/weaknesses and I'm sure several other lessons too.
Yep, playing games as part of living, loving and learning together sure works for me!
What about you? Any great ideas out there for creatively teaching vocabulary (or anything for that matter)?
Check out Works for my Wednesday at We are THAT family for other great tips on a variety of subjects.
Parker and Aaron enjoyed shaking up the letters and flipping the timer.
I forgot about Boggle! I need to whip that one out today. We are in the middle of the same snowstorm and are all stir crazy.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
I should pick up Boggle for the older kiddos. The girls would love it.
ReplyDeleteI love playing games with my kid, too! He's only 5 and not quite reading, but I expect lots of Boggling fun in the future.
ReplyDeleteOne game that's great for about age 8 and up (my son CAN play it, with a lot of coaching, but doesn't understand it well yet) is Chrononauts from Looney Labs. It's a time-travel card game where you start out with the time-line set to history as we know it, and the cards you play change history. Not only does it help kids learn the dates of some important events, but it encourages creative thinking about how events affect one another.
Isn't Boggle a great game? None of us wants to play with my eldest son anymore because he always pulls out those little three- and four-letter words no one's ever heard of -- like bole! Sounds like you've got a really smart guy on your hands :)
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