Reader Melissa Y. recently asked several good questions, one of which was whether we knew of games to encourage writing for her 4th grader…
Let me start by saying that there are so many wonderful ways to explore writing that are fun and playful, and there are so many great ideas out there. One book that explores ideas – some of which are actual games and some are just engaging ideas – is Games for Writing by Peggy Kaye.
If you’re looking for actual board games, here are a few suggestions from our collection!
There are several games that involve making up a definition or describing a person or event in history, and trying to craft your answer carefully enough that the other players believe your response is real. The classic parlor game of Dictionary is played with pencils and paper and a dictionary. One person thumbs through the dictionary, reads aloud an unfamiliar word, and copies down the dictionary definition. The other players write down plausible definitions of their own and then vote for what they think is the correct answer.
The board game Balderdash is a fun game based on Dictionary, and its cousin, Beyond Balderdash, takes the same theme and adds new categories, including Dates (write what happened then), People (write what they did) and Initials (write what they stand for) . These are a super way to encourage a small amount of handwriting practice and a lot of wordcraft, thinking about the clearest way to write your faux definition! They made a Junior version, too.
A similar game (if you don’t mind the title!) is B.S. The Game of Being Sneaky – in this game, you are presented with a true fact and have to decide whether to share that fact or change it into a whopper of a tale, and see if your friends will believe you. The game is designed for you to present your tale out loud, but you could easily provide pens and paper and have the players write out the story they are sharing.
How about some stories to encourage story-telling? There is Never Ending Stories, which provides cards with various colors (actions, characters, settings, etc) and players add a card to the board in the appropriate color to continue the story. This is lots of fun for kids of all ages, and for an older kid you could add a step at the end of the game where the story is written down to be saved!
A newer game that is for a slightly older audience is Once Upon a Time, which is a card game where one player is the storyteller, trying to get to a certain ending, and the other players are trying to turn the story around. There are expansion packs and blank cards to add your own favorite elements – and again, at the end of this game you could write down the story, working on whatever writing skills (handwriting, capital letters and punctuation, or higher skills like story structure and plot) your kids need.
And don’t forget that at the end of any fun word game – Scrabble or UpWords or Boggle – you can add a writing and story-telling element by taking out pencil and paper and making up some sentences or a short story using the words you made in your game!
Does anyone else have games for encouraging Melissa’s daughter in writing?
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Between board games, PisecoMom squeezes in a little homeschooling (including some writing activities!) for her two kids over at Mind Games.
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YOu've hit all of my favorites and turned me on to a few new ones. A way to make Once Upon a Time a little less daunting, is to just draw several cards and use those to tell your story.
One that doesn't require any supplies just paper and pencil have a generic story starter, "It was a dark and stormy night when suddenly…." and everyone starts writing for 5 minutes, at the end of 5 minutes pass your paper to the next person and you write for another 5 minutes….. So on and so forth until you get your paper back and you end your own story. Those can be hilarious stories.
Always looking for new games…thanks for the list! Kim
Thank you so much for making my question your theme post. You gave me some great ideas. I looked through my game closet with a new eye. I showed my daughter your ideas and she was very interested in the card game. Creating interest seems to motivate her little grey cells. So I thank you for that also. Melissa Y.
I love this post!
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