6 Writing Games To Help Kids Learn To Write
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Guest Post: HOMER
Writing can feel daunting to young learners — there are so many letters to memorize, sounds to recall, and words to spell! You might be wondering what the best writing games are to help your child learn to write
HOMER has got you covered with these simple and engaging writing games! With minimal equipment required, these activities can be set up within minutes and provide unlimited fun.
Before we dive into our favorite writing games, let’s discover why writing is important in child development.
Why Writing Is Crucial To Development…
From their early scribbles to drawing recognizable letters, writing is a useful form of self-expression for children and allows their ideas to flow more easily.
What’s more, the alphabetic code is reversible, so children who use sounds to determine words for writing are simultaneously advancing their ability to sound out words and read coherently. Win-win!
This is a lifelong skill that your child will use every day, so it’s important to know how to best nurture and develop these emergent literacy skills from a young age.
By playing the writing games outlined below and taking the time to practice, your young writer will be an expert in no time!
6 Writing Games For Kids
Writing Games For Preschoolers And Kindergarteners
1) Disappearing Letters
What You’ll Need
A chalkboard
Chalk
A paintbrush
A cup of water
What To Do
Start this activity by writing a repeated letter, a word, or your child’s name on the chalkboard using your chalk. If you’re writing a single letter, start by writing it five times in a row.
Dip the paintbrush in the cup of water and have your child trace over each of the letters, erasing them one by one.
Once your child has mastered one letter, move on to multiple letters until they’re comfortable using this activity to “write” their name and short consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words such as dog and cat.
This activity is great for working on developing your little one’s fine motor skills as well as their spelling abilities, which will aid them as they take pencil to paper!
2) Hands-On Writing
What You’ll Need
A tray or bin
A fun material such as sand, flour, or shaving cream — anything that can hold a shape
A pen and piece of paper (optional)
What To Do
To start this activity, grab a tray or bin that’s deep enough to hold your chosen material.
Fill your tray and bin with sand, flour, shaving cream, or anything else that can be used to form a shape. This is what your child will use to develop their writing skills!
Say a letter to your child (or write the letter on a piece of paper for them to copy, if needed) and have them write the letter into the sand, flour, or shaving cream with their finger.
Eventually, you can work your way up to having your child write whole words, like their name or things they love (the names of their friends and family or even their favorite foods or toys).
Don’t worry too much about what the letters look like — even scribbles are OK! Whatever your child writes to produce a letter or word is great progress.
This activity lets you make writing a fun, sensory experience! Try using different materials to keep your child engaged and to learn more about the world around them while they practice their writing skills.
You could also use a fingerpainting method for this game for some colorful fun — enjoy getting creative with this writing game!
Writing Games For First Graders
3) Roll The Dice
What You’ll Need
A piece of paper
A pen or pencil
A dice
What To Do
This writing game is all about creating a fun story with your child using dice to determine how many words you get to add each turn!
Start by having your child choose a main character, a setting, and a problem. For example, your character might be a cat, your setting might be a garden, and the problem might be that the cat needs to find some food.
Write the first sentence of your story based on the character, setting, and problem you’ve chosen with your child. Using our example above, the first sentence might be, “Once, there was a cat in a garden who couldn’t find any food.”
Once the first sentence is written, have your child roll the dice. Whatever number the dice lands on is the number of words they’ll add to the story — not one word more or less!
You can assist your child by sounding out tricky words and helping them write if needed. Once they’ve added their words, it’s your turn to roll the dice and write your next round of words based on the dice number.
Take up to five turns each before finishing your story together by choosing an ending. Then read your story aloud to see how it all flows!
4) Speech Bubbles
What You’ll Need
A piece of paper for drawing or a printed cartoon
A pen or pencil
What To Do
For this activity, start by having your child draw a picture with a character or two. You could draw this scene together or even print off some characters from the internet to color and decorate together.
Once you’ve finished drawing and decorating your characters, it’s time for each of you to draw and fill in a speech bubble to create thoughts for your character (or a conversation if you drew more than one character).
For example, if your character is a dog, maybe he’s standing by an empty bowl. What might a hungry dog say? Some options could be, “Where’s my food?” or “I hope they bring pizza!”.
Let your child’s imagination run wild with possibilities for filling in the speech bubbles and enjoy this writing activity together by writing down the silly suggestions, too!
Speech bubbles are one of the most fun options for writing games as they’re quick, easy, and short for young writers.
This may help your child feel less intimidated as they explore more words to add to their vocabulary and practice forming their letters correctly.
Writing Games For Second Graders
5) Grocery List Writing
What You’ll Need
A piece of paper for making your list
A pen or pencil
What To Do
Make the task of writing your grocery list into a game!
You can do this as part of a make-believe or role-playing game with your child, or you can create a real grocery list together before the shopping gets done.
Try planning out some meals for the week ahead, and then make a list with your child for each of the ingredients needed. Explain that writing a list helps us to remember all the things we need to buy, and discuss what items you might need to purchase.
Keep it simple and help your child by sounding out words as they write. Once the list is written, your child can enjoy checking off each item one by one after it’s been put in the cart!
6) Household I-Spy
What You’ll Need
Two pieces of paper, one for you and one for your child
Two pens or pencils, one for you and one for your child
A timer or timer app
What To Do
One of our favorite writing games is this version of I-Spy with a twist!
Grab your paper and write each letter of the alphabet down the left-hand side. Once you and your child have both written the alphabet on your paper, set your timer for 10 minutes.
You’ll then race from room to room to find and write down as many objects as possible that begin with each letter of the alphabet. Write each object next to its corresponding letter and fill in as many as you can within the time limit.
You could also set a handicap for this writing game to raise the stakes! For example, if your child’s time limit is 10 minutes, cut yours in half so that you have to find as many objects as possible in five minutes.
We hope you’ve found some new favorite writing games from our activities in this guide!
From creating sensory play activities with sand and fingerpaints to writing a grocery list together, there are so many ways to get creative with your child and make writing a fun shared activity.
For even more writing fun, unbox a learning adventure with our Explore Letters Kit. Watch your child build their literacy skills, using their imagination to lead them through a variety of writing and spelling activities!
If you're looking for more childhood education resources and offline activities curated by learning experts, visit our friends at HOMER.