Nursery and primary 1 activity

Cut out 12 squares of paper. With your child, talk about six different things they could draw on the squares of paper. For example, a house, a dog, the sun, etc. As they draw, talk to your child about their picture. Describe different parts of it.

For example: You are drawing a dog. It’s brown. What noise does a dog make? If they are at a more advance stage in developing their fluency you can ask your child to describe what they are drawing. For example ‘Tell me about the dog you are drawing.’ ‘Does your house have a chimney?’

Ask your child to draw two copies of each picture, making each picture exactly the same if they can.

Once your child has finished drawing, use their pictures to play a memory game. Turn all of the squares face down and mix them up. Make sure your child cannot see the pictures.

Take turns to turn over two squares. If they are the same, keep the squares, if not turn the pictures back over. The winner is the person who has collected the most squares at the end.

If your child is interested in letters, you could write letters on squares of paper. Make sure there are two of each letter so you can play the matching game using the letters. As an additional challenge, ask your child to think of a word that begins with that letter/sound.

Primary 2,3, and 4 activity

Talk to your child about any board games you have at home or that they have played at school. Do they use counters or dice? Explain that you are going to create a board game together.

On paper, help your child to draw a ‘path’ to follow as the game progresses. This can be a set of squares, like the game Snakes and Ladders. It could be squares that go round the edge of the board like Monopoly.

On each square, write a different word. The object of the game is that when you land on a square, you make a sentence with the word in the square. Can you come up with interesting or tricky words to use?

Look for small objects that can be used as counters. For example, buttons or different coins. If you have dice use these but if not, you can write the numbers 1-6 on pieces of paper and fold them. When it is your turn you select one of the pieces of paper to see how many squares your counter moves.

Can you think of different ways to play the same basic game? For example, write the name of a different object in each square. When you land on the square, you have to give the word for more than one of that object.

For example, bus would be buses, man would be men. What other ideas do you have?

Primary 5,6, and 7 activity

Talk to your child about board games you have played together or that they may have played at school. Ask them to think about any common features these games may have.

For example, some involve counting and moving across squares, and others involve using question cards to ask and answer questions to play the game.

Explain to your child that their challenge is to create a board game that you can play together that helps them with their literacy. This might focus on spelling, punctuation or grammar.

Talk about what the focus of the game might be.

For example: It might include cards where you read a statement and the other player has to identify whether the statement is a fact or an opinion, or you might have to create appropriate similes, such as ‘As cold as ……..’

Ask your child to design a board game, which should be for two or more players. They should think about how it will be played, what will be needed (counters, dice, question cards, etc) and how the game is won.

• do players earn points?
• is there an end destination on the board that shows you have won?
• are there any penalties as you play the game, for example, missing a turn or going back two spaces if you get something wrong, or land on a certain square

Once your child has noted all their ideas, they can make their game. Ask them to write clear instructions and rules so that other people understand how to play the game.

Have fun playing the new board game together.