Playing with Words

Rosemary Portmann, Elisabeth Schneider

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351702249
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

With an emphasis on learning through play, this book provides a comprehensive collection of word games for vocabulary development or to constructively fill leisure time. The activities are suitable for children and adults and can be adapted for different client groups. They are ideal for teachers, therapists, youth club leaders or activity providers. The only principle for including a game in this collection is that it had to be fun to play! This title includes: A-E-I-O-U; Letter patience; 'M' in the middle; double meanings; Pro-nouns; Haiku; Guessing rhyming words; Forbidden letters; Who has the word?; and Word snakes. The only principle for including a game in this collection is that it had to be fun to play!

The Games

1 a-e-i-o-u

This game has as many rounds as there are vowels, ie, five. In the first round every player writes down as many nouns as possible containing only the vowel ‘a’. In the second round, players write down as many nouns as they can think of containing only the vowel ‘e’, and so on.

Round 1:	cat, can, band, bag, sack, tack ...
Round 2:	wren, rest, hen, bell, beg, leg, degree ...
Round 3:	tin, wink, sink, bin, bliss, knitting ...
Round 4:	boss, dog, rot, Bob, mob, top ...
Round 5:	mud, bus, turn, sun, bun, nun, nut...

Game variations:

• Many more words can be found if every type of word is used. Longer and more unusual words can be created by allowing compound words:

  a:	aardvark ad
  e:	Lee’s teeth
  i:	Mississippi fish
  o:	dog dollop
  u:	sunburnt mum

• The number of rounds can be extended if players have to find words which only contain a certain vowel combination:

  ea:	bean; dead ...
  ee:	beer; deed ...
  ia:	liar; Brian ...
  io:	lion; onion ...
  ai:	paid; lair ...
  ay:	day; bray ...
  ou:	bought; sought ...
  oa:	loan; moan ...
  oi:	coin; loin ...
  oo:	book; food ...
  oy:	toy; boy ...

• Instead of words, the players could also write down short sentences containing only a particular vowel. The number of words in a sentence could be set at a given number. The example below shows a minimum of three words:

  a:	Barbara bans bats.
  e:	Ben sweeps seeds.
  i:	Big Bird sings.
  o:	Otto lost food.
  u:	Nuns gulp gum.

• Another alternative is to find words that contain as few as possible additional vowels to the targeted vowel:

  a:	baggage
  e:	benevolent
  i:	billion
  o:	footnote
  u:	rupture

The winner is the person who gets the most words containing the target vowel per round. Bonus points could be given for the longest word, or the longest sentence with the same vowel. If additional vowels were allowed, their number is deducted from the number of target vowels used.

2 Everything OK?

Abbreviations demand to be played with! It can be lots of fun to give new meaning to common abbreviations. For example:

OK:	old kebab, or orange King ...
TV:	the vestry, or thin vegans ...
VIP:	virtually impenetrable palace, or Vick’s invisible poodle ...

Game variations

• One player thinks of the abbreviations and the others each have to find, within an agreed time, as many funny new interpretations as possible.
• Instead of abbreviations, the players could also use car number plates and make up imaginative phrases or short sentences.

The winner is the person who has the most or the funniest ideas.

3 Everything you can eat beginning with R

A category and an initial letter are chosen. Players have to think of as many items belonging to the given category starting with the chosen letter. For example:

Everything you can eat beginning with:

R:	radishes, rhubarb, ribs, raisins ...
S:	swede, sausages, sweets, sugar ...

Game variation

• Now add a second letter after the first and make the game more difficult, such as everything you can eat beginning with:

  Sp:	Spaghetti, spam, spearmint, spinach, spices
  Be:	beetroot, beans, berries ...

If players are writing down their own items, five points could be given for each word that no one else has thought of, and perhaps only one point for words that have also been thought of by others. The person who has the most points after a certain number of rounds is the winner. Alternatively, the winner could be the player who thought of the most words in a given time, or who thought of a certain number of words fastest. Bonus points could be given for more original or creative word solutions.

4 Alphabet stories number 1

Every player writes a story in which the first word starts with A, the second with B, the third with C, and so on, until Z. The players can agree to leave out difficult letters like Q, X and Y. For example:

All bad chameleons don’t ever find good ...

Game variations

• The alphabet is used backwards, for example:
  Zany, wicked vampires undertake tricky scary ...
• Players invent the story together with each player taking a turn to add a word. The story can be as long as you like. After the last word beginning with Z is reached start again with the letter A, or vice versa if starting from the end of the alphabet.

If individual players are playing on their own, the winner is the player who finishes their alphabet story first, or whose story is the most original one. If the group plays together, there is no winner. The game is all about the funniest or most unusual ideas.

5 Alphabet stories number 2

Players take turns to tell or write down a short sentence for a coherent story about a previously agreed topic. Each sentence starts with consecutive letters of the alphabet. The players could agree to leave out difficult let...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• About the Authors
• Acknowledgements
• List of Games
• Introduction
• The Games