Games that increase vocabulary

[mystery]

Any games please - free or paid for, pencil and paper, board games or computer or Ipad that are fun for a primary child and that really do increase vocab - i.e. they help you learn the meanings of new words and you don't have to know the word in the first place (so not Scrabble please).
With thanks

[fatbananas]

We have just bought this (see bottom right of picture: Word Play game), though I haven't brought it out to play with yet - was waiting for Easter hols!

http://www.frankedu.com/frank_product.a ... Cat_Id=18#

[doodles]

Frederick is good. Online and fun.

[mystery]

Thank you both. Can you tell me what that game is like once you have opened it? I can't see a review anywhere.

What is Frederick please? I can't find it online.

[ourmaminhavana]

I Spy; Talking Heads; Animal,Vegetable or Mineral; Hangman; Lexicon; Going through the alphabet coming up with nouns or adjectives to describe a category eg animals, occupations etc

[doodles]

Flipping autocorrect was meant to read Freerice. Sorry.

[mystery]

Ah right - I've tried freerice, but how does it teach you vocab you don't already know / have some idea of? It's the same problem with some of these other games - Scrabble, Boggle, hangman etc - why would they increase your vocabulary knowledge unless you read the dictionary to play them?

[ourmaminhavana]

Because presumably the other player ie you has a good vocabulary

[mystery]

Ah right ... I see what you mean. I just don't see that working with my 8 year old though. Let's say I choose bellicose as my hangman word - she's going to have no chance of getting it and won't play hangman again with me until she's too old to play it.

Are there any games which do in themselves expose each player to more esoteric vocabulary and definitely build up this knowledge through playing rather than the "by chance" approach of Scrabble etc.

To me, Scrabble etc is great if your vocab is already good or you spend half the time trawling the dictionary to play it (which my children will not - I did as a child), but it's not a very efficient way of improving vocab - solving anagrams maybe.

[KS10]

What about crosswords? We have some of those crossword/sudoku/codeword books and DD quite enjoys them. She understands that some are too difficult for me too, so she doesn't mind not being able to complete them. Sometimes she surprises me by getting the odd difficult one correct. When I ask her if she's taken a peek at the answers she'll tell me about a lesson that they had in which the word came up.