Half Term Word Games

Parents and carers, you'll have your work cut out this week, keeping your children occupied and happy, I expect! But it's also an opportunity for fun, finding out, free thinking, family time and a whole lot more out-of-school experiences. Holidays offer great potential for nurturing, learning and development in all ways - including language.


Here are 3 ideas for home language fun. They can be played while wandering through a park, rambling through the countryside, relaxing on the beach, or sitting round the kitchen table.

1) How many F's for Flower? 

Choose an item you can see and think up words to describe it that start with the same letter. 
Here's an example:
Flower: fragrant, fresh, floaty, flame-shaped, fragile, floppy, frail, fluted, fire-bright, feathery.
What's the score?

2) What rhymes with...?

Choose a simple word, such as Tree. How many words can you think up that rhyme with it? 
Examples: tea, free, pea, me, three, he, she, be, bee, key, agree, brie (cheese), knee.
Now make up a verse with those words.

3)  Limericks

These little rhymes start with a rhyming couplet, and finish up with another line that rhymes with it, but in the middle there's a different, shorter rhyme - or a rhyme within the line.

Aim for simple rhymes, and start with 'There once was...' or 'There was...'

Here's an example:

There once was a boy called Sam,
Who loved to eat toast and jam.
But he didn't like cheese, or carrots or peas,
And he simply couldn't stand ham.

If this is too hard for your children, just try the first rhyming couplet together. 


Now they can write out their lists and rhymes, decorate, and display!

Enjoy your half term!
Kate