Okay so today I needed some word game ideas for teaching my nephew. Kid loves words starting with “Ti” but man, finding ready games sucked. Websites wanted money or were just word lists. Boring. Argh. Figured I’d just cook up my own stuff like always. Here’s how it went down.
First, I dumped my brain. Grabbed a coffee (spilled some, course) and just scrunched all the “Ti” words I knew onto a sticky note. Tiger, Ticket, Tiny, Time, Tissue, Tip, Tickle, Tin… you get it. Ended up with maybe 15-20? Felt alright for starters.
The Game Mess-Up Phase
Tried doing charades first. Easy, right? Nope. Kid’s drawing a tiger, but guess what? He drew stripes but also added weird wings. We yelled “Dragon!” “Monster!” – nope. He looked crushed. Total fail. Stuck a fork in that idea fast. Then I remembered that childhood game where you whisper down a line. Thought: “Telephone with Ti words!” Started with “Tiny”. Kid one whispers “Time” to kid two. Kid two hears “Tie” and whispers “Tie”. Last kid says “Tie” out loud. Started with “Tiny”, ended with “Tie”. What? Useless.
Finally, Stuff That Actually Worked
Okay. Deep breath. Took the words from the sticky note and wrote each big and ugly on its own scrap of paper. Threw ’em all in an empty cookie tin (hah!). Then bounced back between these three:
- Simple Sorting: Dumped all the word scraps on the floor. “Find things that are small!” Kid grabs ‘Tiny’, ‘Tip’ (cause like pencil tip?), ‘Ticket’ (tiny rectangle… whatever, kid logic wins!). Next: “Things that are animals or people!” Got ‘Tiger’, ‘Tinker’ (like the job?). Kept him busy.
- Word Hunt: Hid the word scraps around the darn living room. “Find a Ti word that’s something you use!” Kid runs, finds ‘Tissue’ behind the couch. “Good! Now one that tells us what time it is!” He grabs ‘Time’ off the windowsill. Easy. Kept him moving.
- Sounds Like A Story… Kinda: Pulled three scraps blind: ‘Tiger’, ‘Ticket’, ‘Train’. “Make a sentence! Go!” Kid goes, “The tiny tiger took the train ticket.” Nonsense? Sure. But he used TWO target words and laughed. Win. Pulled more: ‘Tickle’, ‘Time’, ‘Tissue’. “It’s tickle time with the tissue!” Again, silly but words stuck.
Honestly, the super simple, physical stuff worked best. Sorting words? Grabbing ’em? Hiding scraps? Kid actually remembered the words after. Saw ‘Tiny’ in his book later and yelled “Ti word!”. Felt like I actually got somewhere. Didn’t need fancy apps or paid junk. Just pen, paper, a tin, and a willingness to let things get messy on the floor. Done.