Divide students into pairs. Give students a worksheet with analogies on it. Let students take turns timing each other to see how many analogies they can complete in two minutes. Have each child check off the problems she did while being timed. Then let her complete the rest of the problems. Give the students an answer sheet so they can grade their work. Students who answered more timed questions correctly win the game. However, after children grade their analogies have a class discussion to talk about how the words are related.
Vocabulary Co offers several online games that provide analogies that test whether students can find an analogy that matches the same relationship as the one listed in the game. The elementary game provides a sentence and four choices of analogies. Kids answer multiple-choice questions to identify the similar analogy. The game provides instant feedback.
Since analogies help students identify relationships, students can play an analogy game by generating their own analogies that are similar to a teacher-provided analogy. Divide students into pairs. The teacher writes an analogy on the board. Give each student a white board and dry erase marker. The first student in each pair to write three analogies that show a similar relationship to the teacher-generated analogy wins a point. Students must hold up their boards when they are finished writing, for teacher approval. This game works best with a small group of eight or 10 students.
The teacher will review different types of analogies. Some analogies have antonym, synonym, whole to part or noun to verb relationships. Divide students into groups of three or four. Show examples of different analogy relationships. Then give students cards that state different analogy relationships. For example, one card might say antonym and another might say whole to part. The teacher writes an analogy on the board. Each group must hold up the correct card identifying the relationship in the analogy. Each group receives a point for each correct answer.