Free Language Arts Games for Elementary Students

Language arts, consisting of reading, writing, speaking, listening and viewing, are the foundations for most of the learning we will achieve in our lifetime. In today’s age of technology, elementary school students may find traditional language arts exercises and worksheets to be boring. Teachers and students can use the following free online games to make practicing language arts skills much more fun. These games will help to hone a student’s vocabulary, spelling, grammar and language skills.
 

• Monkey Business Sentences – Hosted by Earobics, this favorite site of elementary language arts teachers features an interactive game in which students must put words in sentence order to help the monkey cross the bridge.
• Past and Future Verb Match-Up – This interactive memory game by HMH School Publishers features sentences and verbs which students must correctly match.
• What’s In The Bag? – Sponsored by Read, Write, Think, students must use word clues provided to guess what it contained in a virtual bag.
• Word Hunt – This interactive game hosted by Starfall asks students to find hidden words to complete sentences.
• Type the Contractions- In this game, students are presented with two words and asked to type the proper contraction made up of those words.
• Spin and Spell- This interactive game, which allows students to play individually or against others, offers categories of words that students must correctly spell.
• Nina Loves to Name Things – Sponsored by Scholastic, this game asks students to find and sort words that belong in certain categories.
• Whomp!- This game, which requires Shockwave 8 to play, is a virtual “Boggle,” in which students are given letters and must form as many words as possible in a specified amount of time.
• Word Pairs – Featuring two mice, this game offers students pairs of opposites and asks them to choose the correct word from each pair in response to a question.
• Spelling Match – Sponsored by Houghton Mifflin, this game asks students to match incomplete words with their missing letters, either against the clock or at their own pace.
• Word Search Generators – This site allows users to submit words and the desired grid size and creates a word search based on that information.
• Elementary Word Search Maker – Using this word search maker, teachers or students may type in six words up to eight letters long and a word search will be created.
• Puzzlemaker – Sponsored by Discovery Education, this site features a variety of puzzles, including word search, criss-cross and cryptograms, that can be generated by the user.
• Squigly’s Pencil Puzzles for Kids – This site offers a host of puzzles, crosswords, word searches, and code puzzles that kids can print and complete offline.
• Puzzles4Kids – Offering puzzles for age groups from three to twelve, this site allows kids to choose and print puzzles to be done offline.
• Awesome Analogies! – This site offers students interactive analogies at different levels of difficulty that students must complete. They are immediately given the correct answer after submitting their answer.
• Sentence Scramble – Word magnets are featured on this site. Students must move the words and phrases around on the virtual refrigerator to create a sentence.
• Spelling Scramble and Word Search Maker – Students may type in ten words on this Scholastic web site, and a spelling scramble or word search is created using those words.
• Word Crow- Acting like a virtual “hangman” game, students must choose the correct letters to spell six letter words in this game.
• WordWorld: Pig’s Riddle – Based on the popular PBS Kids program “Word World,” in this interactive game students must complete word riddles when given a choice of words.
• Spelling Bee – Sponsored by Visual Thesaurus, this site offers students a chance to participate in a virtual spelling bee, testing their knowledge against other students their age. They must listen to the word being spoken then correctly spell it.
• Letter Maze – This game requires students to click on letters in alphabetical order to be taken through a maze.
• Word Wheels – By scrolling down to Word Wheels or Word Wheels 2, students can play this fun game in which they have to create a word to match the word’s clue.
• Missing Sounds– In this game students are given a word that is missing a sound and they must spell the entire word correctly.
• Undersea ABC – This game for younger elementary students tests letter recognition. It asks them to click on the correct letter when asked to do so, and uses upper or lower case letters.
• Dinosaur Words Repeat – Words are spoken in this game and students must choose the correct word from one of four dinosaur eggs.
• Plural Play – Sponsored by Harcourt School Publishers, this game for one or two players asks students to make the proper plural spelling of words.
• Homophones – Designed for fourth graders, this site presents two homophones and asks students to choose the correct one for each sentence given.