English Language Arts Educational Games

Rhyme Games are great for preschoolers and up to 3rd grade for learning rhymes, increasing phonemic awareness, and indirectly improving vocabulary. And they can be fun family entertainment too. I found 10 rhyme board, card games, and toys for Kindergarten and Primary school-age children:- 8 Matching games such as "Fox in the box" (including 3 toys)- A sentence-building game that includes rhyming: Miss Bernard is a wild card- A party game where players have to guess weird rhyming expressions: Rhyme-n-Tyme, Rhyme Board Games Comparison Table GameTypeAgePlayersForPriceRatingRhyming Words Early ChildhoodBoard4‑62‑4Teachers$$$★★★★☆Rhyme TimeBoard6‑102‑4Families$$$★★★☆☆Slug in a JugCard4‑62‑4Families$$★★★☆☆Rhyme and ReadActivity5‑61‑2Teachers$★★★☆☆Rhyming Families MatchActivity7‑81‑6Teachers$$$★★★☆☆Miss Bernard is a wild cardCard6‑102-4Families$$★★★★★Rhyme-n-TymeCard8-102-8Families$$$★★★☆☆What’s the Rhyme? Sorting HousesToy3‑62‑10FamiliesTeachers$$$★★★★☆Fox in the BoxToy3‑62FamiliesTeachers$$$★★★★☆Grab It-Timee to rhymeToy3‑42-4Families$$★★★☆☆ Type: Board (Board Game) / Activity (Board based Activities) / Toy (Toy) Rhyme Board Games Rhyming Words Early Childhood Learning Center (NewPath Learning) ★★★★☆ For Teachers | Grade K to 1st | Age 4-6 | 2-4 Players The ELA Learning Center from NewPath Learning includes: 1 game board30 illustrated self-checking review cards2 sets of 30 flashcards. Each flashcard has another card that rhymes with it (the flashcard has an illustration and the name of the word is written on it, which avoids any ambiguity). So you can play matching games with these flashcards. A teacher's guide for instructions and more activities. Self-checking cards enable independent play. It is also a good tool to introduce team playing and cooperation with younger students. It is great for use in the classroom or after school programs. I really recommend this engaging game as the board is colorful, the two types of cards enable to vary the play, and the included pouch is really practical for storing the learning center. Rhyme Time: A Game of Rhyming and Poetry (University Games) ★★★☆☆ For Families | Age 6-10 | 2-4 Players| Author: Dr. Seuss Rhyme Time consists of a game board, 34 Poem cards, 86 Rhyme cards, 4 Punch-out playing pieces, 4 Base stands, 1 Moving Pawn, Die and Game instructions. Players roll the dice and land on either a "poem space" or a "rhyme space". If they land on poem space, they are asked to create a poem using the subjects on the cards.If they land on rhyme space, they must replace the last line from a Dr. Seuss rhyme with a new sentence. I recommend "Rhyme Time" as it enriches children's imagination and sense of creativity. As the game is quite demanding (children are asked to create rhyming verses) it works best with older children that do not need to learn phonemic awareness, so the main object of the game is to be creative and create poetry. Other Rhyme Board Games There is also Rhyming Sounds Magnetic Sorting Board (Lakeshore, Age 4-6) with 72 picture magnets representing 18 phonics sounds and a magnetic board. I do not recommend it as the magnets are illustrated with a picture but without the word, and many of these pictures are confusing. For example, there is a magnet that shows a "splotch"; some kids call it mud, others call it dirt. Rhyme Card and Activity Games Slug in a Jug (Orchard Toys) ★★★☆☆ For Families | Age: 4-6 | Grade K to 1st | 2-4 Players Slug in a Jug consists of 48 rhyming cards with cool pictures. You can ask children to find rhyming pairs and make silly sentences out of them. It is actually pretty easy to find the rhyming pairs as the last letters of rhyming words have the same color. If your child got that point, the game kind of loses its purpose as the child may just collect words with similar colors. I recommend Slug in a Jug for younger children only. Miss Bernard is a Wild Card (All Things Equal) ★★★★★ For Families | Age: 6-10 | 2-4 Players Miss Bernard is a Wild Card is about a virtual Ella Mentary school, in which Miss Bernard encourages kids to say weird stuff about the other teachers! This is a sentence-building game in which kids get the first two cards to rhyme, complete with other cards that make a weird sentence, and then read the sentence out loud! Sentences are composed of 5 cards in the same specific order: Teacher card: the name of a teacherRhyme card: must rhyme with the teacher card for the sentence to win.Action / Adjective / Noun cards For example: "Mr Docker / is off the rocker / and dances like a / bearded / squirrel." is a winning sentence while "Mrs Coco / is bananas / and makes noises like a / chocolate filled / baby." is not because the two first cards do not rhyme. Each card has a score of points, players add up the points and the one who gets the largest number after 3 rounds wins. I highly recommend "Miss Bernard is a Wild Card". You can play it with children as soon as they start to read. It is actually a hilarious game and the whole family will certainly enjoy playing it. The main educational points are: Identifing part of speech elements in sentences and combining these elements to build sentences (5 sentence boards help younger children understand this generic sentence structure).Rhyming (for younger players, as rhyming makes the most sense as a pre-reading activity)Calculating the score (for younger players, as the numbers added are small). The only problem is that these 4 sentence boards make the game quite bulky while it could have been a simple easy to carry everywhere card game. Rhyme-n-Tyme (EEL) ★★★☆☆ For Families | Age: 8-10 | 2-8 Players Rhyme-n-Tyme includes clue cards, timer, a score pad and instructions. Each round, one player draws a card with two rhyming words then starts giving clues to his team to guess what these words are. Clues can include words, gestures, and acting out. The team has to guess the rhyme within one minute. I recommend Rhyme-n-Tyme. It teaches children to cooperate and play in teams. It also enhances the sense of time making the game more interesting and competitive. Most of the rhymes are really funny and children enjoy guessing them! The reason why I do not give a higher rating is that there is not a lot of replayability for a party game (not so many cards), and the scorepad does not make sense (you can just count the number of cards you won for the score). Rhyme and Read (The Teacher Depot) [Discontinued] ★★★☆☆ For Teachers | Age: 5-6 | 1-2 Players | Grade K to 1st Rhyme and Read includes 15 task card strips and 15 picture task cards in a laminated storage envelope. Every task card strip has a sentence with two rhyming words. One of the two words has its picture on the strip while the other doesn’t. The child should look at the picture, find the picture of the other rhyming word from picture task cards then read the whole sentence. Note that the rhyming word is already there, helps of course for children who read and makes the game much less challenging this is why I recommend the game for Kindergarten or Grade 1 but not for Grade 2. Rhyming Families Match (The Teacher Depot) [Discontinued] ★★★☆☆ For Teachers | Age: 7-8 | 1-6 Players | Grade 2 Rhyming Families Match includes 6 literacy centers, each of which contains 4 laminated task card mats and 16 laminated word task cards in a laminated storage envelope. For example, One of the 6 centers calls for rhyming families match "ag, ap, at and an". Each task card mat calls for one of the families. Let's take "ap" for example. In this card, 4 pictures of words that end with "ap" are printed. The words for each picture is printed on a word task card. Students choose a task card, look at the picture, and read the word find the matching pieces that complete the rhyming families. I recommend Rhyming Families Match game because it is easy to use very well organized into a specific progression (therefore ideal for schools), even if the game is not especially funny or interesting for the players. Rhyme Toys These 4 games that are also toys, and help with fine motor skills in addition to phonetics and rhyming. What’s the Rhyme? Sorting Houses (Lakeshore) ★★★★☆ For Parents and teachers | 2-10 Players | Age 3-6 What’s the Rhyme includes 10 colorful houses and 50 clipboard tiles. Each house has a cute picture and the word that children need to match with a rhyming word on a tile. Children find the tiles with words rhyming to the picture on the house and slip them into "their homes". When they are done, they can open the magnetic roof of the house and take out tiles to check their answers. I highly recommend What’s the Rhyme because the concept is interesting to children and the game allows them to identify rhyming words that end with different letters. For example, they get to match "key" with "three". Fox In the Box (Learning Resources) ★★★★☆ For Schools and families| 2 Players | Age 3-6 Fox In the Box consists of a hat, a box, a tree and a chair, along with 20 picture cards, 40 double-sided activity cards and a double-sided spinner. Kids pick any of the 20 picture cards Then they follow the rhyming directions to place their cards in the proper place.This place is one of the four accessories that come with the game! The tree, chair, box, and hat each measure 4” tall.Then kids spin the spinner that tells them where to place the picture card in relation to the object (in, on, over, near, below …etc.) I highly recommend Fox in the Box! because it develops children on two different levels. It helps build with phonemic awareness and knowledge of prepositions expressing spatial concepts, especially for children with special needs. Grab It-Time to Rhyme (The Learning Journey) ★★★☆☆ For Parents | Age 2-4 | 2-4 Players Time to Rhyme includes four playing boards, twenty-four game discs and one disc dispenser. Every board has 6 pictures in circles. Children find the rhyming disc for every picture on the boards. I recommend Time to Rhyme toy as the disc dispenser adds fun to the game - note that the game seems to have been discontinued by The Learning Journey, so distributors currently sell the remaining stock and it might only be available used when you read this post. Other Rhyme Toys Rhyme and Sort Rockets (Learning resources, Age 3+) includes 8 rockets, 80 small photo cards that can be placed on the rocket’s doorway or inside the rockets, and an activity guide. (players gather in the rocket the pictures that rhyme with the main picture in the rocket's doorway). I don’t recommend Rhyme and Sort Rockets as the rockets are cute but not durable and the photo cards are confusing as they do not have the word written on them. Other Types of Rhyme Games If you are interested in more rhyme games, you might want to check my post "13 Rhyme Card, Puzzle & Domino Games for Primary & Preschool Children" You may want to start with rhyme card games as they are the simplest form of rhyme games. Puzzles are useful learning tools as well as they are self-correcting. You can also use them to enhance little children's motor skills and increase their ability to concentrate or domino games. Rhyming dominos are great for children who enjoy their manipulation. A cheaper option that requires more time for activity preparation is printable rhyme games. If you are interested by them then you need to read my upcoming post "Printable Rhyme Games". If you notice that your child likes dice games I advise you to take a look at my post "Rhyme Dice Games for Preschoolers and Primary School".