10 of the Best Writing Board Games for Kids

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If you’re a freelance writer, you likely want to pass your love of writing onto your kids. One way to do that is to play writing themed board games together. Here are some to pull out for your next family game night.

In our homeschool, we often pull out the board games. Games are a great way for kids to practice what they’ve been learning and test out new skills.

You can find board games for nearly any subject area, including writing and language arts. If you’re looking for some fun ways to practice these skills, you’ll want to give these games a try.

For each of the writing games for kids below, I share a quick synopsis of the game, plus tips on how to use it to really help your child develop their writing skills. You’ll even find some creative ways to play.

With these tips, you can pull out the game and let your child play solo – practicing key skills while you get some work done.

Ready to start playing? Here we go!

1. Rory’s Story Cubes

Creative story telling is an important aspect of writing. You need to be able to think through your story, and use your imagination to make things happen. Rory’s Story Cubes is a great game to help your children in this area.

If you purchase the version listed above, you get three different Rory’s Story Cubes sets. It’s a fun way to add some variety and mix things up a bit. But, feel free to just pick out one to start with.

How to Play

This game doesn’t really have many rules per say. On your turn, you roll the dice. Then, you use the pictures as inspiration to tell a story.

You can play on your own, or take turns telling stories with others. You could even interrupt each other and take over the story. It’s pretty open ended, which is an amazing way for kids to play.

While you play, you might change the images to fit your story. For instance, there’s one with a flame on it. That could be a campfire. Or, it could be a dragon’s fiery breath. Wherever your imagination leads, there the dice go.

What They’re Learning

As your children play this game, they’re really working hard on their creative story telling. They’re learning how to take random items and insert them naturally into their stories.

At first, some of the stories will seem very forced. But, as they practice, they’ll get better. You can really help them by playing together. Model good storytelling for them, so they can see some possibilities.

Other skills your children will practice by playing Rory’s Story Cubes:

• Communication skills
• Public speaking (well speaking to the other players at least)
• Taking turns
• Vocabulary

Expansion Activities

Let your child select the image on each die to use, and then write down their story. Younger kids can write just a sentence or two, while older kids can write entire pages of adventures.

You can also have your children draw the images on the die. Then, they can use them as cards to help them practice telling their story to others.

Another option is to have your kids pick one or two images, and brainstorm all of the words that picture could represent.

2. Spark Cards – Sequencing Card Game

I first heard of this game while working with an SLP. It’s such a good game for children to use to practice their verbal communication and expressive language skills.

How to Play

This game comes with eight different sets of story cards. There are six cards in each set. However, for younger players, you can remove some of the cards to make it a bit easier.

Like with the game above, this one if pretty open ended. Here is one way you can play:

Set out the cards you’re working with, and ask your child to sequence them for you. They should look at all of the cards and figure out what happened first. Then they can find the event that happens next, and so on.

When the cards are in order, they can share the story.

What They’re Learning

As your children play this game, they’re practicing sequencing. Knowing what order events happen in is an important skill for any writer. Otherwise, their story won’t make sense.

These cards also provide the opportunity to use transitions. Your child can use words such as, “Next, then, and last” as they describe the story. These are key words for writers.

Other skills your children will practice by playing Spark Cards:

• Communication skills
• Answering W questions (who, what, when, where, why)
• Adding details
• Observation and attention to detail
• Understanding the beginning, middle, and end of a story

Expansion Activities

Your child can set out all of the cards and sort them by story.

Or, your child could write down the story they told. They can add their own pictures.

You can challenge your child to take their favorite story and create a set of Spark Cards for it. They can draw the key plot points, making sure to hit the beginning, middle, and end.

3. Tell Me a Story

This game is one of our favorites, and I even dedicated a whole post to it on my homeschooling blog. You can find that here:

15 Ways to Practice Literacy Skills with Tell Me a Story

How to Play

This game can be played in a couple of different ways. Here is the one we do the most often.

First, shuffle the cards together. Then, deal them out. It’s okay if one player ends with more than the rest.

Then, each player places their cards out in front of them, so they can easily see what they have.

One person goes first. They select one of their cards, and puts it into the middle of the table. Then, they start the group story. They might start with something like, “Once upon a time, there was a magical island where a fairy lived.”

The next person then selects a card of their own. They play it to the middle of the table, next to the first card. Then, they continue the story. They connect what was already happening to their new card.

Play continues until all of the cards are used. Expect the story to take many unexpected twists and turns along the way.

What They’re Learning

While playing this game, your child will be practicing creative story telling. They’ll also be working on their creative thinking, since they’ll need to mix things up in the story to help it all make sense.

Your child will learn more about story elements, including characters, settings, and events.

Other skills your children will practice by playing Tell Me a Story:

• Listening skills
• Sequencing
• Adding details
• Thinking critically
• Thinking quickly and coming up with new plans when the ones they were planning on no longer work

Expansion Activities

There are so many fun ways to play this game solo. It’s one that my kids frequently pull out during Family Writing Time.

You can have your child write down the story that you all worked together to make. They can even add illustrations and turn it into a book.

Your child can pick out five or six cards, and use those to create their own story.

They can also draw a picture of their favorite scene. They can add details that weren’t in the game cards, to make it their own.

Your child can look at all the cards and make character profiles for each character. This will help them dive deeper into character creation, which is an important writing skill.

4. Spying Parts of Speech Board Game

Grammar is an important part of writing. You want your kids to write in language that is easy to understand.

To help them get a better handle on the parts of speech they’ll use as they write, play this educational writing board game.

How to Play

This game has several different levels of play, so it’ll work for a nice range of kids. It’s recommended for two or three players, from age 7 and up. I’ve found it’s great for second graders on up.

There are two board games and three sets of cards, so you’ll want to find the one that’s most appropriate for your youngest player at first. This way everyone can learn how to play. Then you can try mixing it up to make it more of a challenge.

On your turn, you spin the spinner to see how far you move. Then, you do what the space says. You may need to draw a card, or identify the parts of speech that are underlined in a sentence.

As you go around the board and complete the challenges, you’ll earn points. The game ends when one player reaches 15 points.

What They’re Learning

While playing Spying Parts of Speech, your child will practice identifying different parts of speech. They’ll see how the parts go together in a sentence.

Other skills your children will practice by playing Spying Parts of Speech:

• Taking turns
• Counting points
• Naming different nouns, verbs, and adjectives

Expansion Activities

If your child wants, they can pull this out on their own and go through some of the cards. They can draw pictures of the sentences and identify the different types of words.

Your child can also create sentences on their own. Then, they can color code the nouns, verbs, adjectives, and pronouns that they used.

They can create a list of all of the nouns they find in the room. Or make a list of all of the verbs a cat could do.

You could give your child sentences that are mixed up, and let them try to put them in the correct order based on the parts of speech.

5. Disney Tell Tale

This game is so fun, we have two different versions. We have the Toy Story one pictured above, and the Disney Princess one.

How to Play

In each game, you’ll find about 100 cards with different characters, settings, and things from the Disney story it’s about. With these, you can tell an unlimited number of stories.

There are three different game variations included in the rules, so be sure to check them all out. Our favorite way to play involves giving each player six random cards.

Then, each player creates their own unique story with the cards they have.

There are also ways to play that involve combining your cards, but my kids prefer to tell their own instead of mixing things up.

What They’re Learning

As your child plays Tell Tale, they’re learning to take familiar characters and create new adventures for them. This really relies on creative thinking.

At first, don’t be surprised if your kids stick to familiar story points as they play. However, do encourage them to think about what happens next, or what else could have happened. With your encouragement to be creative, they’ll be spinning their own stories before you know it.

Other skills your child will practice by playing Tell Tale:

• How setting affects the story (how would Cinderella be different if it happened under water?)
• Character development
• Creating a story with a beginning, middle, and end
• Creative thinking – how to use random things in one story
• How parts of stories (such as fairy tales) are similar, even across different tales

Expansion Activities

Challenge your kids to pull out all of the cards and sort them some how. They might come up with a character pile, a setting pile, and an other pile. Or maybe they’ll sort them by story (works better with the Princess one that has multiple stories included.)

You can also have your kids type up a story using the cards they drew. This way they can get some tech involved and practice their typing skills.

They can also handwrite the stories.

You could ask them to create a comic book out of their story. Or draw a few new characters to add to the mix.

6. Scattegories

My family has been playing this game for years. It’s so much fun.

How to Play

Before you start playing, the players agree upon a list to use. There are several to select from. When I play with my kids, I typically let the youngest child pick the list. Then we go up numerically from there on subsequent rounds.

But, you can do that part however you’d like. Once the list is selected, one person rolls the letter die to see which letter you’ll be working with.

Then, start the timer to start the game round. Your goal is to write a word that matches each item on your list that begins with the letter rolled.

So if your list asks for a girl’s name, and the letter was W, you might write down Wanda.

When the timer is done, stop writing. Now it’s time to share answers and discover your score.

However, you get points only if no one else has the same word, so you’ll want to be creative.

The person with the most points wins the round.

What They’ll Be Learning

While playing Scattegories, your child will really be working on their word choice. This is essential for writers.

You want to pick the right word, that starts with the correct letter, that isn’t going to be written down by anyone else. That requires a bit of critical thinking as well.

Other skills your child will practice while playing Scattegories:

• Handwriting
• Vocabulary
• Parts of speech (need to write down nouns, not adjectives)
• Comparing words (does what the other player wrote down actually match the clue?)

Expansion Activities

To help your child get even more out of this game, challenge them to create a story using the words on their list.

Or, have them pick one clue and create an alphabet list for it. They can write down one word for each letter of the alphabet that fits that clue. You can have them use a dictionary or internet resources for this one if you’d like.

They could also make their own unique list to try the next time you play. Maybe they have some favorites from each list they could combine, or create their own entirely.

For kids who enjoy drawing, you could have them come up with picture clues for each word on one list. What icon or image could they draw so everyone would know what the category was?

7. Balderdash

Before we got the actual board game version of this game when I was a child, we used to play our own using an actual dictionary. We called it simply, “The Dictionary Game.”

How to Play

In this game, your goal is to come up with your own unique definition of an unknown word. But, your definition needs to be so good that you convince the other players that this definition is the actual one for this word.

One person selects a card and reads the word aloud. Then, each player writes a definition. While they do that, the person who drew the card gets busy writing down the real definition.

Then, all of the definitions get shuffled together and the player who wrote the real one begins reading them aloud. Each player listens carefully, and decides which one they think is real.

When all of the definitions have been read, it’s time to reveal the truth. If you voted for the true answer, you get some points. You also get points for anyone who voted for your definition.

The first player to make it across the board wins.

What They’re Learning

As your child plays Balderdash, they’re really working on their vocabulary and critical thinking. They’re also learning how to think quickly and write a definition that sounds like it came from the dictionary.

They also have to write neatly enough that someone else can easily read their answer, so handwriting is worked on as well.

Other skills your child will practice while playing Balderdash:

• Listening carefully to all of the definitions
• Thinking about which one makes sense
• Identifying parts of speech
• Reading aloud (when it’s their turn to be the Dasher)

Expansion Activities

To have some solo fun with Balderdash, your child can use a dictionary to create their own list of unknown words. You can use these in a future game.

They can draw pictures illustrating the new vocabulary words they learned, or try to write a sentence using as many as possible.

Your child could pick five cards and look up the definitions for each of the words. It’s a great way to practice dictionary skills. They could also consult a thesaurus and find synonyms. That’s always important for writers.

8. Taboo Kids vs. Parents

My husband and I first played the original Taboo game at a church game night while we were down in San Diego. It was such a fun game, we bought a copy for our own game collection.

Unfortunately, a lot of the words in it are really hard for kids. So I was thrilled to discover this version! While we haven’t technically played it yet, it is going to end up underneath the Christmas tree this year, and I’m looking forward to it!

How to Play

Just like in the original Taboo, your goal is to get your teammate to guess the word you’re describing. However, you can’t say any of the forbidden words. If you do, you get buzzed by the beeper. If that happens, that point goes to the other team.

In this version, there’s a kids’ deck and a parents’ deck. The words on the kids’ deck are obviously geared for kids. They also only have two forbidden words, to make the game a bit easier.

You get to go through as many cards as you can in one minute. Then, it’s the other teams turn. After you’ve played as many rounds as you want, the winning team is the one with the most points.

What They’re Learning

While playing Taboo: Kids vs. Parents, your child will be practicing their vocabulary. They’ll really have to think about how to describe a word without using any of the forbidden ones.

As they play, they’ll also have to try to guess words when it’s their turn to guess. Can they listen carefully to the clues given to discover what the word is?

Other skills your child will practice while playing Taboo: Kids vs. Parents:

• Reading
• Descriptive language
• Creative thinking
• Turn taking

Expansion Activities

To encourage even more learning through play with writing board games, have your child take down this game on their own during Family Writing Time. They can create pictures for some of their favorite words.

Or they can create their own cards. What words could they include? Which forbidden words would make the most sense for those?

They can also pull out the adult cards and give them a try. They could think about how they’d describe this word without using any of the forbidden ones. Then, they can write down their plan and try it on you later.

Your child could also draw five random cards and create a story using one word from each card. It’s a fun story creation challenge.

9. Apples to Apples Junior

Most of my kids now enjoy playing the original version of this game. We also have the Disney version. No matter which one we play, it’s a ton of fun on family game night.

How to Play

There are two types of cards in Apples to Apples, red and green. The red cards can be used to describe the green ones.

Each player begins with a handful of red cards. Then, one player starts the game by flipping over a green card and reading it.

The other players then look at their red cards, and decide which one in their hand is the best fit. They play this card to the center, upside down.

When all the cards are in, the person who is it grabs the stack and begins reading them aloud. Then, this person selects the card that they think is best. The player who played that card wins the green card for that round.

Then, the next round, a different person flips the green card. Play continues until one player collects enough green cards to be declared the winner.

What They’ll Be Learning

As your child plays any version of Apples to Apples, they will be comparing and contrasting words. They’ll have to look at the words in their hands, read the definitions, and decide which one is the best match.

On their turn to judge, they’ll also have to think critically about all of the options, and decide which one fits best.

Other skills your child will practice while playing Apples to Apples Junior:

• Creative thinking – you can play cards geared toward the judge
• Synonyms and antonyms
• Being able to explain why they played the word they did (you can argue why your word is best if your family allows it during the judging stage)

Expansion Activities

Your child can play this game in fun ways all by themselves. You can challenge them to sort the cards alphabetically. Or categorize them in some way.

They can pick five cards and use them to create a story. Or draw illustrations of some of their favorite words.

They could pick a green card and then flip through the red ones to find the VERY BEST fit for it, in their opinion.

10. The Storymatic Rememory

Sharing memories is such a fun way to spend time together, and this game encourages just that.

How to Play

This game comes with several different game play options you can try. It’s a conversational game, not one with lots of competition.

One way to play is to draw a card out of each of the three decks. Then, you ask the question:

“When you look at these three cards, what memory do you have?”

There’s obviously no right or wrong answer. Each player will have their own unique memory to share. It’s a great way to learn more about each other, or get to know someone better.

What They’re Learning

As your child participates in the Rememory game, they’ll be recalling memories and details. These are key components for writing.

They’ll also be practicing sharing stories with others. This is something that some kids struggle with, so it’s a great way to help encourage them to share.

Kids will also be listening. They’ll hear what memories other family members or friends have, and learn that not everyone views the same event in the same way.

Other skills your child will practice while playing Rememory:

• Making connections between words
• Comparing memories
• Self-reflection
• Communication skills

Expansion Activities

There are so many great ways to expand this game. Have your child listen carefully to the stories a Grandparent or another relative shares. Then, have them create a picture book detailing one of the memories. It will be a great family keepsake.

They can also write down their own memories, in a journal. It can help spark the interest of self-reflection and getting things out of their head and onto paper.

You can have your child read some autobiographies and compare them to a biography of the same person. This will help them to see how people might portray themselves differently to different people.

The Best Writing Board Games for Kids

Have you played any of these writing board games with your kids? Did you find any new ones to try?

If you have any other recommendations, I’d love for you to share in the comments below. After all, writing board games are a great way for your kids to pick up on your love of the written word, and perhaps even see themselves as writers in the future.