This game can best be described as a mental tug of war over letters of the alphabet. And who doesn’t love tug of war? Even my four year old enjoys playing it and benefits from the experience. This educational game helps with letter recognition, spelling, creative thinking, and cooperation.
Word on the Street Junior Game Details
Product: Word on the Street Junior
Company: Educational Insights
Website: https://www.educationalinsights.com/word-on-the-street-jr
Recommended Age Range: 6 and up, though kids as young as at least 4 can easily play as long as their is an older child or adult on their team
Price Range: ~$20
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Review
We borrowed this game from a friend and the first thing I realized as we are setting it up is how beneficial it was for my 4 year old who is still working on memorizing all his letters. As part of the setup, you have to match the letter tiles to the correct spot on the “street.” He would pick up a tile and I would say things like, “Do you remember what letter that is? That’s a K? Can you find it on the board?” Of course, my older kids rapidly had this task taken care of, so he only got to do a few letters, but I could see in the future doing this activity alone with him so he can receive the most benefit.
Next, this game stretches your thinking skills. First the players are divided into two teams. The category cards give a team a topic, you flip over the timer, and they have until the sand runs out to choose a word that fits the category card. For example, one of our categories was “an animal smaller than an ant” and my oldest came up with tardigrade.
Generally speaking, you want to find the longest word possible, because the more letters in the word, the more letters you get to “tug” on. However, sometimes there will be certain letters that you want to use to capture those letters. For example, one of our clues was “something you can see through” and the W letter was one pull away from being captured. In my frantic, muddled adult brain, I came up with words like glass, glasses, plexiglass. Then my four year old shouted out “window” which was perfect, because it let our team capture the W.
We have only played this game twice so far. Once we had an adult on each team which made things balanced. The time we played with four kids and an adult, I played both sides. This caused some minor problems as one team in particular was upset that I seemed to be giving better suggestions to one side than the other, which was coincidentally true. After that, I only helped the losing team.
I also help with a lot of the spelling once kids have decided on their word. Overall, I think this a fun, enjoyable way to practice spelling and creative thinking while getting kids working together. While we may not purchase our own version of this game, it is one that I would happily borrow periodically from my frend.
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Michelle has a PhD in Engineering from Stanford University and a Bachelor's Degree from the California Institute of Technology. 
Hi Michelle,
I was looking at your curriculum choices and related posts but I have not found a clear reference how you teach spelling. I am not an English major for sure so the number of rules is overwhelming and I would like to know how you guide your kids though the spelling journey? Do you cover Logic of English rules and simply follow them or what curriculum are you using for that? Especially starting from second grade when writing gets to another level and how we write words start to matter?
Hi Alexandra! I am not really rigorous about spelling with my kids yet. They have weekly copywork passages and we talk about the spelling of the harder words before they copy. Starting in second grade, I also re-type out the same copywork passage making spelling and grammar mistakes and have them make corrections. However, my kids don’t have weekly spelling words or spelling tests. I almost never correct the spelling in their creative writing as I don’t want to stifle their desire to write. I’ve found that while not perfect, my oldest, a fifth grader, is a fairly decent speller. I think mainly this is just because he reads a lot and he is the sort of kid that pays attention to that sort of thing and has an internal desire to get it right. I don’t think my younger kids will have that same sort of drive though. My third grader is a pretty bad speller. A month or so ago I purchased Logic of English’s new Sounding Out the Sight Words product. I got it mainly for my 1st and 3rd graders, but I really like the way all the spelling rules are laid out, so we’ve been using it as a family. We’ve done a few of the lessons and I’ve turned it into a game for them. I use whatever new rule we just learned and write some words of varying difficulties on index cards using that rule and the lists they provide. My first grader just has to read the word. My older two have to spell the word on a whiteboard, but I choose easier words for my 3rd grader than 5th grader. If they get it right, they get to try throwing a nerf ball into a laundry basket for points. (We have various house rules, like the four year old gets to shoot from much closer than the 11 year old and gets more tries, etc.) I’m planning to continue this over the summer and hopefully get through most of the book, so we will be doing low-key spelling more regularly. We’ll see how it goes! If I continue to like it, I will add it to my recommendations!