Clothespin Game

What You Need:

• Clothespins (at least 30)
• Pencil
• Paper

What You Do:

1. Help your child separate all their clothespins into approximately eight different sections.
2. On a sheet of paper, have your child write down eight parts of speech: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections.
3. Let them describe what each part of speech is and give at least two examples. If they have trouble, support them with hints.
4. Now have your child assign a pile of clothespins to each part of speech.
5. For each pile, your child should write down one example of that part of speech on each clothespin. For example, let's say they have three clothespins in the adjective pile. They could write down the words stinky, pretty and noisy on their clothespins.
6. On a separate piece of paper, write a story about ten sentences long. The goofier the story, the better!
7. Strategically erase a couple of words in each sentence.
8. Now it's time for the game: have your child use their clothespins to fill in the missing blanks of the story.
9. Once they're finished, let them read the story out loud.
10. Carefully check to make sure the words work grammatically within each sentence. Explain why a misplaced word doesn't belong.
11. Challenge your child to find an even funnier and crazier version of that story by using different clothespins!

This clothespin game doesn't just have to be for one person. Invite over your child's friends, make more clothespin words and find out who can make the best story!