How my kids have fun while building their vocabulary!!!

My 6.5 and 3 year old boys are using big words all the time, and it is all my fault. Ever since they were born, the one thing that I have been doing consistently is talking to them like I would, to adults. Of course I enjoyed, and still enjoy baby talk, but only when it comes from them.

While this bit has ensured a strong foundation, the vocabulary building has happened over time – literally. When they have more than 5 minutes, and they know they can’t run around or play with their toys, they never say “Mamma, we are bored!” because they know that Mamma is always ready to play word games. We play while waiting at the restaurant, doctor’s clinic, drives, time on the flight, sometimes even when they are on the pot in the morning.

• Rhyme Game – My son would say a 3 or 4 letter word and we would take turns calling out a word that rhymed with it. That’s easy! But I also taught him how to find them. For example, when he said ‘try’, I would ask him to replace the first letter with another, in the order of the alphabet, so he would mouth out ‘ary’, ‘bry’, and say an excited ‘cry’, followed by ‘dry’ and along the way learnt new words (with meaning of course) like ‘pry’, ‘wry’ and so on. Now we have progressed to starting with ‘hive’ and rhyming it with ‘chive’, ‘drive’, ‘five’,  and brilliantly connect that ‘live’ can be pronounced in two different ways, and learning new and longer words like ‘naive’, ‘survive’ and so on. It is a beautiful experience.
• Beginning and Ending Game – We both would decide to make as many words as possible that began and ended with a particular letter. He would say, start with ‘p’ and end with ‘t’, and we would take turns saying ‘pot’, ‘pet’, ‘pant’, ‘part’, ‘pest’, and I knew he was thinking of words just like we did in the rhyme game – put the letters in the middle in the alphabetical order. But now, he has progressed to ‘paint’, ‘protect’, ‘prominent’, and sometimes learns on the way, that ‘primate’, ‘procrastinate’ actually end with an ‘e’.
• Association Game – This is a game that even the small one enjoys playing. He says a word that comes to his mind and the next person says an associated word (connected to the first one’s). For example, if he says ‘cycle’, his brother says ‘bell’, and I say ‘jingle’, and we go on with ‘christmas’, ‘snow’, ‘winter’, ‘wool’, ‘sheep’, ‘farm’ and it is endless fun. Sometimes you can introduce a new word here and there, since they will remember better when there is an association. Sometimes, when they come up with the weirdest of links to words, I stop and ask them to actually associate it, and it is so amusing or wondrous how they can connect so beautifully. (My small one once connected ‘pasta’ to ‘doctor’ and his association was “I had pasta for snacks in school today, and when I took the plate back, I fell and hurt my knee, and we had to visit the doctor!”) Actually, this is my favourite game, because it is simple, breezy and is enjoyed by my 3 year old as well as my 80 year old mom.
• Word Building – Say a word and the next person says another starting with the last letter of the original word. He would say ‘car’, I would say ‘rat’, and this could go on to ‘table’, ‘egg’,  ‘gas’, ’soda’, ’airplane’, ’enter’… Now we add challenges to this and just play with a theme, and the current favourite is names of cities / countries / continents – where he has to build the word and tell us if it is a city or a country or a continent…… so it would start with a lot of fun and mostly end with frustration of landing up with ‘Australia’, ‘America’, ‘Argentina’, ‘Antarctica’, ‘Austria’, ‘Asia’ and then a desperate attempt to change the theme to another favourite which is names from the animal kingdom – where he also needs to tell us if it is a bird, animal, predator, carnivore, raptor, marsupial, mammal or reptile. Over time, you could make this a Connecting Word Game and start with ‘coffee-break’, ’break-fast’, ’fast-track’, ‘track-suit’, ‘case-file’, and of course give up or go on….
• Three Letter Game – We started playing this last year when he was about 5 years old, where one player (THINKER) thinks of a three letter word (KEYWORD), and the other one (FINDER) tries to guess it by saying some more 3 letter words. Thinker now has to say 0, 1, 2, 3 depending on how many letters in the Finder’s word actually match the Keyword. Suppose, Keyword is ‘rat’, Finder says ‘sip’ and Thinker says ‘0’ (no match). If Finder says ‘not’, Thinker says ‘1’ (‘t’ matches). If Finder says ‘try’, Thinker says ‘2’ (‘r’ and ‘t’ match)…. and the Finder has to use the same letters in more words and try to find the Keyword. The rule is to use words with as many letters as the game, so you can’t use ‘pop’, ‘add’ ,’mum’, ‘tall’, ‘pasta’ etc. Over time, one can progress to challenges like finding the keyword within 20 turns, or trying to find 4 or 5 letter words, and this will keep the kids totally occupied.
• Difficult words – We play this 5 minute game where I deliberately use only difficult words when I talk to him. It could be regular conversation about anything. For example, instead of “Don’t run on the lawn!”, I say “Refrain from running on the lawn!”, or instead of “I want some water, it is so hot!”, I say “I need some water to quench my thirst!”, and I sometimes introduce idioms like “Pot calling the kettle black!” or “Cock and bull story!”. And it is so interesting to hear them ask for the meaning and try their own examples using the new words.
• Silly words – We play this 5 minute game where we make deliberate silly mistakes in grammar, pronunciation, sentence structure, word usage and giggle away until we split our sides laughing. For example, “Mamma, are we going where?”, “We is on our way in the zoo!”, “Can you pass me the remote? I am thirsty!”, “Thank you for brunging the towel!”. Although I suggest, nobody play this game too often, lest we have children forgetting the correct usage forever!

So while the dads are body building, moms are image building, let the children do some vocabulary building and have some fun at the same time! And I specifically warn all parents that these are addictive games, so all the best!!!