Inside: A great collection of vocabulary word game apps for kids, suitable for school and home.
My girls enjoy playing on our iPad but I am a bit of a stickler for learning apps that get their brains working. This collection of word game apps certainly fits that bill, engaging children with fun learning challenges that will expand their vocabulary while also building critical thinking and reasoning skills.
7 Educational Vocabulary Word Game Apps for Kids
Great for middle to upper primary/elementary aged students, Bluster sets kids a timed challenge to find trios of matching words with rhyming words, prefixes, suffixes, synonyms, word roots, homophones and adjectives spread across three levels of play. The game can be played solo, as a team or competitively against another player.
I wasn’t sure about Kids’ Vocab – MindSnacks as it seemed like a lot of repetition before children are moved to a new ‘lesson’ but Miss 9 really enjoyed the challenge to persist until she mastered each vocabulary list. Lessons are allocated according to the age of the player and each word list includes words from an interesting themes, with themes such as astronomy, mapping, money, fantasy and more. The nine vocabulary and spelling games unlock in sequence as the player spends time mastering vocabulary lessons.
A great app for developing the general knowledge of children aged 9+, Word Dynamo prompts kids to choose a themed list (with all sorts of interesting themes) and then quizzes them to match each word with a short definitions With a vast range of lists, there are topics to interest everyone from elementary school kids through to those in college and beyond.
The Winning Words LLC series of apps includes matching games for a range of vocabulary based learning tasks including synonyms, antonyms, homophones, compound words and plurals. Each game includes a number of levels of difficulty and can be played solo or with multiple players on the one device.
Great for kids aged 9+, Shake-a-Phrase: Fun With Words and Sentences develops vocabulary, parts of speech practice and creative writing and with shake-your-own silly sentences it’s lots of fun!
Find the Synonym provides a great challenge for those in upper primary/elementary school and secondary school. Given a word and a definition, children are challenged to make a synonym of that word using the letters provided. Once you’ve played 250 synonyms, you unlock antonyms too!
Not just for adults, Quizzitive provides a great vocabulary challenge for secondary students. Developed by the Merriam-Webster dictionary creators, the app includes four games – speed drill, tunnel vision, name that thing and hidden letters, and up to 10 levels (paid version). Free version contains ads.
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Christie Burnett is an early childhood teacher, presenter, writer and the editor of Childhood 101. More importantly, she is a Mum who believes wholeheartedly in the value of children learning through play, the importance of quality early education, and the togetherness of family.
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