Classroom word games for learning English vocabulary

Missing Letters

classrom games tips and ideas

learning and teaching resources

Our missing letters worksheets help kids develop their spelling skills. In these tests, students must fill in missing letters to spell a word correctly according to its accompanying picture. If your students enjoy this activity, you could give them extra practice by playing additional word games.

Fun, interactive, great tools for learning. Who doesn't like to play classroom games? Here are some ideas to inspire you. These activities can be used in any topic!

The suggested games focus on spelling, writing and vocabulary building. They require minimal preparation and can be used just to practise any vocabulary.

Below you will find descriptions of the following classroom games:

• missing letters
• mystery words
• hangman
• flowers

To browse all of our missing letters worksheets sorted alphabetically by topic, use this resource guide. Also, we offer a variety of online word games that go well with these printables.

ideas for extra classroom games

Below you will find some classroom games that go well with our missing letters worksheets. Any game can be used in any vocabulary topic.

missing letters

  • Write your vocabulary words in capital letters on the board.
  • Each word is missing one letter (for example, the first or the last letter).
  • Ask students to complete the words with the missing letters.
  • This can be played in groups or as a class. You can make it harder by limiting the time the kids have to guess.

mystery words

  • What mistery word is hiding in these letters?
  • Write them on a board, for example:
    L V S - leaves
    C R N - acorns
    M R L - umbrella
  • Students have copies of a workseet in front of them, look at the wordlist, and try to guess the words.

hangman

  • Choose a word and write the appropriate number of spaces on the board.
  • Students guess a letter one by one.
  • If the student guesses correctly, write that letter in the space and give the student another turn.
  • If they guess wrongly, start drawing a hanging man and have the next student guess a letter.
  • Let the first student to guess the word take your place.

flowers

  • This is a version of Hangman.
  • On the board, pupil A draws a dash for each letter of a word, and five flowers for Pupil B.
  • Pupil B says a letter, and if it is included in the word, Pupil A writes the letter in the appropriate dash.
  • If it is not in the word, Pupil 2 loses one of the flowers - Pupil A erases it.
  • If Pupil B finds the word, he/she takes over but if he/she loses all flowers before the word is completed, Pupil A chooses another word.