Identify the animal: Give each child a rhyming word and ask them to guess the animal. "Mat and I rhyme. I am a …"

I spy: This is a simple wordle 2 game that most people are familiar with. Find something around and tell the youngsters what sound or letter it starts with. Children must look about and try to figure out what you've "spied."

Make a word: As soon as your child is old enough to spell, you can play this game with plastic letters, magnet letters, or letter blocks. Play it mentally or with paper and pencil with older children. Simply give your youngsters some letters and ask them to make words out of them. Excellent starting point for board games like Scrabble.

This is a game I used to like as a kid. Do you recall it? Make a grid on a sheet of paper. Then, on one side of the grid, write some categories (for example, "plants," "girls' names," "cars," and "grocery goods") and alphabet letters across the top. It does not have to be the entire alphabet. The goal is to come up with a word for each letter and category.