Games That Teach Parts of Speech

By Laurie Block Spigel

Grammar can be one of the most boring subjects, where memorizing grammar rules (that are often broken) is part of the process. Playing games makes it easier and so much more fun! Here are five ways (with additional variations) to play your way to learning parts of speech. They are also excellent warm-up games for writing. Games can inspire!

Silent Crambo – Verbs

This is a traditional rhyming game (also called Dumb Crambo) that has been played for centuries, so there are many versions. You can play it as a verbal rhyming game (good for when you’re in the car), or as a performing game (in a living room or back yard or classroom). Crambo teaches parts of speech and builds memory skills while playing with rhymes. In the end, you can exhaust all possible rhymes for a word and get a physical workout too!

Materials Needed: None.

Number of Players: Two or more. Two players or two teams act as audience and player.

Goal: For players to silently portray words, and for the audience to guess the words being performed. 

Preparation: Each team chooses a (secret) verb that rhymes with other verbs, and a non-verb rhyming word to act as a clue. (Note that many verbs are also nouns.) For example, if the secret verb is weigh (rhymes with other verbs: slay, pay, lay, play, neigh, say, stay), the non-verb rhyming clue could be day.   

To play: Team A tells Team B, “It rhymes with ___.” Then Team B huddles and whispers, so as not be heard by Team A, which word they will silently perform. There is no rehearsal or planning; the performance is up to each player. And Team B performs the correct word (kept secret by Team A), the teams switch places and play another round.  

Example: Team A says, “It rhymes with day.” Team B quietly chooses pay. They turn to face Team A and each player mimes paying or making a payment (maybe they pull invisible money out of their packet and hand it to an invisible person). If Team A thinks they know the word, they say, “No, it’s not pay.” Then Team B tries another word, and acts out lay (they might each lie down on the floor), and Team A says, “No, it’s not lay.” Game continues until Team A says, “Yes, it’s weigh!” Then the two teams trade places and a different word is used.

Variation: This game can be played verbally instead of silently, perhaps as a car game, without pantomiming each word. However, the verbal version does not provide the experience of dramatizing and exploring each word physically, which deepens the understanding of the words. The silent version heightens awareness and perception for both teams, audience and performers, as the verb (action word) is physicalized. 

Mad-Libs – Nouns (variations teach other parts of speech)

This is a well-known game that is sold widely (bookstores, toy stores, travel stops, Amazon); kids often play Mad-Libs in the car on long road trips. Most of us played this game when we were kids. It’s also available in free online versions, such as this one from the Boston Children’s Museum: https://madlibs.bostonchildrensmuseum.org .

Materials needed: a simple story with space to replace the nouns. I found fairy tales online simplified for ESL learners and printed them out doubled-spaced. One copy for the teacher or parent is enough. A familiar fairytale can add to the humorous comparison at the end.

Number of players: one or more. An entire class can play this game.

Goal: replace all the nouns to create a silly nonsense story. I asked my students to choose nouns starting with the same letter, but that is optional.

Preparation: Before reading the story, underline all the nouns (it can help to also number them). Make a list on a separate page with the initial for each noun. If a word is repeated, use the same replacement word.

To play: Do not share the title of the story. Begin by asking participants to take turns coming up with a noun that begins with that letter. If they are stumped, they can ask for suggestions and then choose the one they like. Teacher or parent writes down the nouns and quickly inserts them into the story in their proper place, using the same replacement noun for repeated words. A double-spaced printed page makes this easier. When the task is done, read the story out loud with the newly replaced words and enjoy the resulting laughter. Then ask the students if they can guess what the original story was. More laughter may result when they realize which story has been retold.

Example: In The Princess and the Pea, the first two nouns each begin with a P. The first two students chose Penny (for Princess) and Pear (for Pea). Our new title of the story was The Penny and the Pear. The next noun in the story was Prince, another P word, which became Pig. The first sentence of the story became: “Once upon a time there was a pig who wanted to marry a penny.” Throughout the story, prince was always replaced with pig, and princess with penny.

Variations:

1.        Instead of replacing the nouns, replace the verbs.

2.        Instead of replacing the nouns, replace the adjectives or adverbs.

3.        Replace all nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs.

4.        Instead of using a commonly known fairy tale, try a folk tale or fable, or even a family story that the child knows well (like the time you went camping with mosquitoes, or the time …).

The Fantastic Binomial - verbs and nouns (variations teach more)

My students beg to play this game! It’s more fun that you can imagine! Maybe because the fun is actually inthe imagining! We all laugh so hard when playing this game!

The Fantastic Binomial teaches more than parts of speech. It also teaches basic sentence structure. Starting with a noun and verb is key, because that is all you need to create a complete sentence. This game often inspires writing, and the stories are usually short, humorous fantasies. During and after playing this game, it is helpful to have blank paper and pencils or pens on hand to write stories that surface in the playing of the game. After a short writing period (maybe 10 or 15 minutes), share the stories with each other. You will laugh and imagine all over again!

Exploring Word Roots: Before playing this game, I have students examine its name. I write Fantastic Binomial on the board, tell them we will play this game, and ask them if they can guess what it means. They all know the word fantastic, and might call out meanings: wonderful, marvelous, awesome, great, the best! I list these words below the word Fantastic, and then ask the students if these words all mean the same thing, and they say yes. I start with the first word they chose and ask if they can find the root word in wonderful. When they suggest “wonder” I underline it and explain that wonderful means “full of worder.” We go down the list: marvelous means full of marvel (close to wonder in meaning but perhaps more intense); awesome is full of awe (jaw-dropping); great has to do with size and importance (the Great Lakes for example); the best is about ranking at the top. Now I go back to Fantastic and ask for the root word, which is fantasy. Now I ask them again if all the words mean the same thing, and they might think for a moment and slowly say no. This is a lesson in synonyms, which may seem alike at first, but there is always a reason to choose one synonym over another. Now we focus on Binomial, the second word in the games’ name. I underline bi – some might know that bi means two. If not I ask if they know any words that begin with bi, and we might discover that bi means two (as in bicycle which has two wheels). Then I underline nom. If someone knows French or Latin they may know it means name or word, but I will probably have to tell them. Now that we have defined the two words, I wrote above them Two-Word Fantasy, which is the meaning of Fantastic Binomial.

Materials needed: paper and pencils. I use index cards, sometimes cut in half, but any slip of paper will do. Each player will need two blank cards and a pencil, used in preparation only. These materials are distributed at the start of the game.

Number of players: Two or more, the more the merrier.

Goal: To create fantastic stories from just two words.

Preparation: First, I ask them to each write down a noun and not to let anyone else see it. I define a noun and offer a few examples, adding that any animal is a noun. I ask students to refrain from using proper nouns (places or names). (Nonwriters can whisper the noun to an adult and they can write it down.) If a child hands me a noun that someone else has given to me, I hand it back and ask for a different one. (If only one or two kids are playing, they can each submit twice the words requested, and I will also write some words to add to the piles, in order to offer more choices for wacky combinations.) Then, I ask them to do the same with a verb, defining a verb as an action word or something a noun might do. The noun and verb can relate to each other (such as cat and meows, or bomb and explodes), but the two words do not have to relate to each other at all. I now have one pile of nouns and one pile of verbs, kept hidden from the students. It can be helpful to have word lists available for the students, to help them select words (see resources for word lists below).

To play: The teacher of parent looks for nonsensical combinations of these words. If I have cat and meows, and bomb and explodes, I will mix them up. I want combinations that do not necessarily make any sense, and that contain a surprise element. I share one pair at a time, and them I ask why or how, and we improvise a story, or two or three, about each pairing of words.  Notice in the examples below how each pairing forms a complete sentence with the addition of “the.”

Example #1: “The bomb meows. Why does the bomb meow?”

Answers: Its best friend is a cat, and it speaks cat language.” “It’s chasing a naughty cat!” “It’s calling all cats for help to diffuse itself!”

Example #2: “The pencil rides. What does the pencil ride?”

Answers: “The pencil rides a horse.”  “The pencil is a cowboy!” “The pencil is the sheriff in the Wild West, riding his horse to catch the outlaws!”

Variations:

1.        Play the Fantastic Trinomial, with three words (tri means three), adding adjectives OR adverbs (not both) to the noun and the verb, creating three piles of words. When introducing these parts of speech, give examples and note that one way to tell adjectives from adverbs is that many adverbs end in -ly. Then point out that, like all rules in the English language, this is not always true. For example, silly is an adjective, and filly is a noun, while frilly is an adjective.

2.        Create metaphors playing the Fantastic Binomial, using two nouns. Define abstract nouns and common nouns. Ask students to write down a common noun first, and then an abstract noun, and make two piles. Perhaps surprisingly, any combination can work. Examples: leaf (a common noun) was paired with moon (an abstract noun: “The moon is a leaf against the sky.” Kitchen (common noun) paired with sun (abstract noun) which led to: “The kitchen is the sun in our home, offering warmth and nourishment;” and “The sun is the kitchen for the Earth, warming and baking our planet;” and, ultimately, “The kitchen is a heliocentric place that all other room revolve around, just as the planets revolve around the sun.” 

Exquisite Corpse Poetry

This game was invented by Surrealist artists and poets in Europe in the 1920’s. It is more widely known as a drawing game (see variations). This game offers an individual creative experience as well as a collective one. The collaborative result is always a surprise.

Materials Needed: Paper and pen or pencil for each player. If playing the foldover version, a regular sized sheet of printer paper is given to each player.

Number of Players: two or more. It’s also possible to play the game alone (see variations). 

Goal: To create a collaborative poem using the same parts of speech in each line.

Preparation: List the parts of speech each player will include in each line: noun, adjective, verb, and noun. It can be helpful to place the list where all players can see it. If needed, define each part of speech being used.

To Play: Each player writes a line for a poem that includes a noun, adjective, verb and noun. The order of words does not matter. Each player can add as many other words as they like.

Example: Player #1 wrote: A black cat meows under the full moon. Player #2 wrote: The kitchen smells of apple pie and cinnamon. Player #3 wrote: Winds sounded like a silver flute. Player #5: The restless baby cried all night. When each player has had a turn (or maybe two turns), they can go around the group each reading their lines one at a time, to hear the entire collaborative poem. It’s nice if the group leader writes down all the lines so players can see what the finished poem looks like, and each get a copy. 

Variations: The Exquisite Corpse can be played as a drawing page, story game, or poetry game.

·      The writing version described here can be played as a Foldover game. Each player writes a line on a sheet of paper, and then folds the paper back just enough so the line is no longer visible before passing it to the next player on their right. Players each add a line without reading previous lines, and carefully folds the paper back to hide what was written. When all players have had a turn (or perhaps two turns, for a longer poem), sheets are passed to the right one final time, and then opened up. Each player then reads the version of the poem they are holding.

·      Additional words can be added to the list of words to include in each line, such as an adverb or a second adjective.

·      Themes can be added, such as a current holiday or season, or a topic selected by the group, such as food or animals or cities.

·      To play this game alone, use a randomizer or randomly select words from word lists or a word box. You can also write four or eight lines and then scramble their order. Try to surprise yourself!

·      If only two players are playing, consider giving each player several turns to make a longer poem.

Randomizer or Word Box

Make a Word Box that you can use whenever you need inspiration or can’t think of a word. This can be as simple as taking a shoebox, or any box with a lid, and filling the box partway with words written on slips of paper or cut up index cards. You can create a box for verbs, another for adjectives, another for nouns—but be aware that many words are used in more than one part of speech. If you get bored with any of the words in your box, take them out and trade them for more interesting words! When using a word box to inspire poetry or story writing, feel free to change the form of any word (for example, add -ed or -ing or make it plural), and add as many other words as you like.

Create an online randomizer for writing and poetry fun at Flippety.net. Under each column write the part of speech for that column. Include a noun, verb, adjective, and noun. Add more if you like, but these four are enough to create an Exquisite Corpse poem by yourself. If you can’t think of interesting nouns, verbs and adjectives, try using some of the word lists linked below. When you have added more than a dozen words in each category (consider adding 20 words or phrases in each), make sure to publish the randomizer so the columns become a spinner. Click on the large arrow at the right of the page to spin all columns at once, or spin just one column at a time with the arrow below that column, or use the small arrow to move a column one word at a time. Find a combination of words that inspire you, write them down, and then add as many more words as you like to create a story or poem.

You can also use the Randomizer to create categories for Who, What, When and Where, the basic elements in every story. Add a second Who column for a second character.

Example: Here’s a Randomizer created to play the Exquisite Corpse poetry game. Here’s another example of a Randomizer with Who, What, When and Where, designed for story writing for kids. I have made randomizers for the writing of pourquoi tales, with columns containing major elements common to that type of story: an animal hero (such as Bob the Brown Bear or Rachel Raccoon), a second character that could be a friend or a villain (such as Zeus or a troll), a time (such as the future or the Middle Ages), a place (an ocean liner, a far-off planet), an event or incident, and an abstract noun or part of nature (such as rain, the Grand Canyon, strawberries, etc.) that is invented or created in the story. Create the randomizer, give it a spin, and create your own creation myth or pourquoi tale. 

Resources

Word lists, free to use or download

Use these to introduce parts of speech and build vocabulary. Students can choose their favorite words from the lists for writing, or to make their own Word Box or Randomizer.

Common nouns from A to Z, helpful when you need a noun that starts with a specific letter (as in the Mad-Libs game, or when writing alliteration or looking for an initial sound).

Adjectives, verbs and adverbs, for elementary and middle school.

Chart list of 100 adverbs as well as lists of adverbs that are positive, negative, about time, describe speech, sound and tone.

Abstract nouns, a list of commonly used abstract nouns.

World’s Funniest List Nouns, Adjectives and Verbs geared for Mad-Libs (for older kids.

More word lists than you want (mostly geared for adults): https://studentandwriter.com

Rhyming Dictionary for Kids from Rhyme Desk, free online family friendly rhyming dictionary with 20,000 words commonly used words.

Available For Purchase

Scholastic Rhyming Dictionary by Sue Young, geared for ages 8-12 (affiliate link).

The Original #1 MadLibs: World’s Greatest Word Game, geared for ages 8-12 (affiliate link).

For More Writing Games, see Seven Poetry Games