My nine year old daughter and I love playing different word games that we have made up when out and about walking. We played these long before the big C came into all of our lives. I thought I’d share three of the games with you in case you might enjoy them too while you are looking for different ways to fill the time. They offer a nice relaxing idea for homeschooling too, which many of us have taken on at this time. So, here goes…
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The first game we play we have called The Animal Game. Here, one of us picks a random letter from the alphabet. It’s really important to pick the letter out quickly without thinking any further than this (my daughter always wants me to pick the letter out as she says she can’t help but think ahead of the answer). Then, the first person who comes up with an animal that begins with that letter wins that round. You can pick the same letter more than once, BUT, you have to come up with a new animal each time a letter is repeated. You can of course have other things as the theme for this game too. Yesterday, I said let’s do it with flowers. Little Wise Junior said, ‘Nooooo, I hardly know any flowers’. I persuaded her to give it a go and she surprised herself at how many flowers she did actually know.
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Another game we play we have called The Letter Game. Here, one of us picks a letter and the other person has to come up with a certain number of things they can see during the walk that begin with that letter. The rule is that both players must be able to see the words they choose, and they have to be nouns (a person, place or thing) rather than an adjective (a describing word). We usually go for around five words with each letter, but we tweak this a bit depending on how well used the letter is.
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The final game I’d love to share with you we have called Speed Letters. Here, one of you chooses a letter, and then the other person has to come up with as many words as they can within a minute that begin with that letter. We’ve ended up in fits of giggles playing this game when we get all flustered towards the end desperately trying to come up with more words.
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I hope that these offer nice relaxed ideas you can use for home learning when heading out together for your next walk. 🙂
