Lorraine Jean Hopping • Hopping Fun Creations

Here's a creative collection of ready-to-go, classroom–tested grammar games, complete with reproducible boards, cards, and pieces. The games tap into all learning styles (visual, logical, interpersonal, kinesthetic, etc.), not just verbal learning. For grades 3-6.

These are the favorite games, the ones students actually ask to play:

Noun Hounds board game (name people, places, and things from A to Z)
Walk the Walk Charades (adverbs)
Command Performance (imperative verb tense and following directions),
The Black Hole (pronoun board game)
Where's Herman? (prepositions)
Run–On Riddle Relay Race (run–on sentences)
Word Jam (contractions concentration)
The Drop Dead Grammar Slammer Game (grammar review)

Teach and learn vocabulary the smart way—using Latin and Greek roots and prefixes and a real-world context (medicine, cooking, advertising, and so on). A few favorite games:

Synonym Tag
Triage: A Word Emergency Game (words with a human body or medical origin)
Toga Treasure Hunt (searching for Latin-based words)
Verbosaurus and Bingo Lingo (match words with word roots; use word roots to make words)
Le Menu (food words)
Advantageous Advertising (use vocabulary skills to create powerful product names)


This book has recently gone out of print but is available in used editions.

PUBLISHERS: These activities, reproducibles, exercises, and other creative ideas enhance the reading or performing of almost any Shakespeare play. Contact me for samples and to discuss how this successful teacher book (recently out of print) can be turned into a lively children's title.

Here's a sampling of my favorite activities:
Rude Dude or Kind Mind? (change Shakespeare's insults into compliments)
Who's Who at the Masked Ball? (use witty conversation to guess which character other students are portraying)
Humorous Homonyms and Other Puns
Metaphorically Speaking
Dying in Style (those famous last words!)
Dear Blabby (give advice to troubled characters)
Characters Stand Accused (a mock trial)
High-Class Costumes (Why was the color of clothing such a big deal?)

The First Dictionary Teacher Resource Book (grades 1-3) and Children's Dictionary Teacher Resource Book (grades 4-6) are filled with activities, reproducibles, games, and puzzles to help children get the most out of Scholastic Children's Dictionaries.