Literacy Games for the WHOLE Year and A FREE Game

Games are wonderful! Not only are they highly engaging, research shows that playing games actually grows brain power! But, let's get real...sometimes we spend so much time teaching children HOW to play a game, that not much time is left to master the intended standard.  That's when I developed the idea of my "go to" games.  I have a handful of games that I teach the kids. Then, I just change the clip art, change the standard and...just like that a whole new game! Here are some of my favorite "go to" games for literacy.

My kids love "Roll, Say, Keep". It becomes a class favorite.  Here's how you play:

• Make a game board with six boxes. In each box, put one of the faces of the dice.
• Make a set of cards that can fit in the boxes.
• Invite the children to put a card in each box.
• Roll the dice.
• If the dice lands on five dots, the children find the card that is in the box with the matching dice face.
• They read the word, and move the card to the right side of the game board.
• Add another new card to the empty box.
• Keep playing until all of the cards have been moved to the right side.

Now that they know how to play, I can use this same game all year. I can use it for letters, words, numerals, shapes...you name it! If you can put it on a card...you can teach it with Roll, Say, Keep! Be sure and scroll to the bottom where you can snag a FREE ABC Back to School Roll, Say, Keep Game.

Another easy game is called "Roll a Word". This is great practice for blending cvc words! *** You can also make this a long vowel game by making the game board have 4 columns instead of 3!
Here's how you play:

• Make a game board with 3 columns/6 rows.
• Put a clip art image and a letter in each box--consonants in the first and third columns and vowels in the middle column.
• Give each child 3 game pieces, I used unifix cubes.
• Invite the child to roll a dice.
• Move the first game piece (unifix cube) up the first column the number indicated on the dice.
• Repeat for columns 2 and 3.
• The children write the letters on the recording page, and then write all 3 letters together to make the word.
• Be sure you have the children read the words when they are done!

See how easy it is to play this game all year? Great practice for blending and segmenting cvc words!

Another class favorite for building cvc words is "Spin a Word".  Here's how you play this game:

• Create a game board with a spinner. Put a vowel in each section on the spinner.
• Create a second game board for consonants. Select 5 consonants that occur most often in cvc words.
• Invite the children to spin the consonant spinner.  Find a "tree pot" with the letter where the spinner landed and add it to the first tree.
• Spin the vowel spinner, add a "tree pot" with the vowel to the second tree.
• Spin the consonant spinner again, add a "tree pot" with the consonant to the third tree.

• Invite the children to write the word on the recording sheet.
• Remove the "tree pot" letters and repeat to make more words.

When first introducing any of these "go to" games, I play them in large group. Then, we play again, as I pull them for small groups.  When I can just "watch" as the children play, the game is ready to be a center. So the first few times we play, they play with supervision. This is why I love to play the same games, just changing the theme of the game! Once the know how to do it, I can concentrate on my small group and they can work on the skills independently!

This is a great large group game. Here's how you play SWAT!:

• Make a deck of cards. They can be words, letters, pictures, etc!
• Make two fly swatters with a picture to match the theme of the game.  In this game, the farmer is on the fly swatter and the animals are on the cards.
• Spread the cards on the floor.
• Show the children the letter, word, etc. that you want them to look for.
• Two children have the fly swatters.
• They look at the cards laying on the ground.
• When they find the letter, word, etc. on the card, the farmer SWATs the animal.
• I tell the kids the farmer is catching his animals!

Here are a few other versions of the same game!

Here is another game, Bang!, that is perfect for large group times! Here's how you play:

• Make a deck of cards with letters, words, etc. 
• On a few card write the "gotcha" word. In this game it is, SWAT!

• Put the cards in a container. I used a bug box from the Dollar Tree for this one!
• Pass the container around the room.
• Invite each child to draw a card from the container.
• They read the letter, word, etc. on the card.
• If they don't know, they can ask a friend.
• We put the cards in the center of our circle as we read them.
• When someone pulls out the SWAT card, all of the cards go back in the bug box.
• Begin again and play for as long as you like!

Here are some versions of the same game. When they pull out a card with a picture, it could be that you ask them to tell you a rhyming word. Or, they might have to tell you the beginning sound. Or, it might just be language and they are just naming the pictures.

There are many skills that we teach for a few weeks, the kids master it, and we move on to the next skill. Syllable sorting is one of those skills.  However, it also easily forgotten! I use syllable sorting as a center quite frequently. The kids just sort the pictures according to how many syllables.

As the year progresses, you can invite the children to stretch out the sounds as they record the words in each column.

I love how easy this game is! The kids catch on easily and do not require much assistance!

Here is a bundle of all of the Literacy Game Packs.  Not every game is in every pack, but the games are repeated throughout the year. For two days, and two days only, this bundle is GREATLY reduced!  This is a better bargain than you will get  with a tpt site wide sale!