![[Childcare] Wordplay and game ideas everyone can enjoy together](https://i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/j1dkFT-SDY8/maxresdefault.webp)
[Childcare] Wordplay and game ideas everyone can enjoy together
There are many ways to enjoy words.
For children who are still growing, language is fascinating and mysterious.
By all means, let’s play with words together with the children.
You can adapt it to their age, turn it into activities or games—there are many ways to engage in word play.
Choose ideas that match the children’s interests and the atmosphere of your class.
A key point is that teachers can incorporate words they especially want children to become familiar with.
Try different variations and let them encounter a wide range of words.
[Childcare] Word play and game ideas (1–10) for everyone to enjoy together
Thunder God has arrived.
“Kaminari-don ga Yatte Kita” is a fun game where you move your body to music.
The teacher keeps the beat and can sing along with the children to enjoy it together.
As you hide different body parts according to the lyrics, kids naturally learn the names of those parts.
The key is to sing and move together.
Because you move your body to the song, it also helps develop a sense of rhythm.
You can adjust the movements to suit your child’s age.
It’s an activity where everyone can have fun moving, while memorizing the lyrics and learning body parts.
greengrocer’s shop
Let’s explore lots of words through a fun, rhythmic hand game.
The teacher asks about the names of various things in time with a song, and the children quickly answer “Yes, it is” or “No, it isn’t” while imagining whether each item would be found at a greengrocer’s.
You can expand the game endlessly by changing the setting—not just a greengrocer, but also a bakery, a zoo, a florist, a convenience store, and more.
It gets even more exciting if you gradually speed up the tempo or throw in some trick questions.
Doing it before lunch could even tie into food education.
There’s no preparation needed, and you can enjoy it like a quick game anywhere, so try it with the children!
Hint Quiz
Hint quizzes that nurture children’s thinking and imagination are a delightful form of word play.
Teachers and children team up to tackle riddles.
From hints like “blue color,” “floats in the sky,” and “a place where birds perch,” they arrive at the answer: “tree.” By giving clues tailored to the child’s interests and knowledge, everyone gets a chance to think actively.
A hint quiz that the whole class can enjoy is a wonderful activity where learning and play come together.
Now, let’s all explore the world of words with excitement and curiosity.
riddle
Riddles are a kind of wordplay that you can enjoy together with children.
If the riddles use familiar things as their themes, they’re likely to capture children’s interest.
In the process of searching for the answers, children’s thinking skills will also be stimulated.
By thinking them through with parents or teachers, communication can deepen as well.
Through riddles, children may naturally expand their vocabulary.
Riddles can be incorporated into daily childcare time or played at home.
They seem likely to become one of the enjoyable activities that promote children’s growth.
[For 5-year-olds] Word Collection Game
![[For 5-year-olds] Word Collection Game](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/1Ml2V1P-8PI/sddefault.jpg)
In this game, everyone on the team decides on a word based on the specified number of characters and then searches for that word among the hiragana cards for the Japanese syllabary.
Not only does it nurture children’s imagination as they think of words, but it also naturally fosters cooperation through interactions with friends.
Working as a team lets them encounter words their friends know, which greatly broadens their vocabulary—one of the game’s key appeals.
Once they get used to it, it could be fun to gradually increase the number of characters or specify categories like animals or vehicles.
Vegetable Song
This song, whose lyrics directly express the names and traits of vegetables, is a hand-play activity that even very young infants can enjoy.
You can bump your fists together with a “ton-ton” or raise your index fingers with a “pi-pi,” and freely enjoy the gestures while keeping time with the pleasant rhythm of the words.
It’s also fun to arrange the song by having everyone find vegetables and fruits that don’t appear in the lyrics in picture books or field guides and adding them in.
As you sing it repeatedly, you’ll likely remember lots of vegetable names and their characteristics!
Onomatopoeia Game
Let’s draw pictures of living creatures, vehicles, and more on the front, and write the sounds or cries they make on the back, then make a paper puppet (peep-show) set you can use to enjoy an onomatopoeia game.
Show the side with the words to the children, have them read the words aloud, and ask, “What makes this sound?” as a quiz.
Or show the side with the picture and have everyone imagine the sounds or cries together and try voicing them—it sounds fun either way.
Let’s all enjoy the pleasant rhythms of onomatopoeic and mimetic words.
It would be wonderful if this leads to the joy of expressing what they see and think in words.
Illustration Shiritori
Let’s have fun playing shiritori using illustrations.
Even very young children can easily imagine the names of things when they have pictures, so it’s highly recommended.
Start by checking the names of the illustrations together, then begin the game.
If you link the pictures the children drew through shiritori, it will likely deepen their understanding of and interest in words even more.
Try incorporating various categories—such as friends’ names and toy names—so the children can feel familiar and enjoy the game, adding creative twists as you play.
Shiritori Cards (for 5-year-olds)
How about trying a shiritori card game that makes the word chain kids love even more exciting? First, within each team, each person picks a word that fits the shiritori chain and draws a picture and the word on a card.
Next, place everyone’s cards face down and take turns flipping them over.
If the flipped card completes the shiritori sequence, you get to keep that card—that’s the rule.
You’ll enjoy expressing your chosen word by making the card, and it can also be a great way to deepen communication with friends.
Once you get the hang of it, add more cards and keep increasing the number of words!
alliteration
Prepare two words that start with the same initial sound, like “tai” (sea bream) and “tako” (octopus), and make paper puppet cards with drawings of each.
Children look at the puppet pictures and listen to the sounds, then respond and move their bodies to match the images as they play.
This activity can stimulate many aspects of development, such as listening to words, understanding words through pictures, and expressing images with their bodies.
It’s also recommended to have the children find words with the same initial sound themselves, make their own cards, and play with friends.
This can help them become aware of the sound of words and provide opportunities to learn new vocabulary.