Games for Fourth Grade English
By fourth grade, students are being introduced to English skills they will use throughout life. They'll study vocabulary, reading and writing. They'll develop creative skills while honing their syntax, spelling and grammar. Games can be an important part of learning.
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Spelling Game
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Play a spelling game, cheerleader-style. Arrange teams of up to five students. A team is given a word to spell. The first student on the team says the first letter, the second student says the second letter and so on. For longer words, the spelling wraps back around to the first student. If someone says the wrong letter, his team loses the point and the student is off the team. The word is passed to the next team. Play continues until only one team with members remains.
Secret Word Game
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Play a version of Groucho Marx's secret word game. Write down a vocabulary word and place it in an envelope. You can choose a word from the students' weekly list or, to make it harder as the year progresses, choose from the grading period or even from the whole year. If a student uses the vocabulary word during the course of the day, she wins a prize. The prize can be a candy bar or cheap toy, anything to encourage students to use their vocabulary words. If no one has used the word by the end of the day, open the envelope and announce the word. The first student who can define the word correctly wins the prize.
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Round Robin Story
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Start a round robin story game. Begin by saying an opening sentence aloud. This sentence will start the story your class is going to construct one sentence at a time. Each student takes a turn composing the next sentence of the story. The sentences must be grammatically correct. Besides honing sentence skills, this will help develop writing creativity.
Family Feud
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Play a Family Feud game based on a current reading assignment. Have teams compete to answer questions about the reading by guessing the top five answers. For instance, name five main characters in the assigned book. Or name the five most important places in the book. Students will have to be familiar with the reading assignment to do well.
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