Charades for Kids: How to Play and Easy Words to Start
Charades is one of the best games to play with children: no board, no cards, no setup, just a few minutes and a lot of silliness. This guide shows how to adapt the rules to your child's age, which words work best, and how to keep the game fun for everyone.
Easy charades words for kids
Start with these simple words and actions that most children know and can act out:
- Dog
- Cat
- Elephant
- Monkey
- Frog
- Duck
- Butterfly
- Snake
- Fish swimming
- Bird flying
- Eating ice cream
- Brushing teeth
- Sleeping
- Riding a bike
- Dancing
- Playing football
- Firefighter
- Doctor
- Rocket
- Train
- Rain
- Snowman
- Dinosaur
- Teddy bear
- Pirate
- Superhero
These ideas are starters. Download Showem free for more words, teams and timers, and same-phone play on one device - from the App Store or Google Play.
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Choose categories and round rules, run teams and timers, and keep scores on one phone - built for in-room charades on iOS and Android.
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Screens from the latest app - from setup to the word on the card.
Fully customizable game rules
Add your friends in seconds
Automatic team shuffling
Ready, set, Showem!
Why charades works so well for children
Acting out a word uses the things children are best at: moving, making faces, and being a little bit silly. It also builds real skills without feeling like practice. Kids learn to read body language, wait for their turn, think about how to show an idea without words, and cheer for someone else's success. Because there is no equipment, charades works at the kitchen table, on a long car ride or at a birthday party.
Ages 3 to 5: animals, actions and lots of help
Little children do best with concrete things they see every day: a dog, a bird, eating an apple, sleeping. Skip anything abstract. Let a parent act together with the child on the first turns, or whisper the word and let the child do the moving. Do not use a strict timer at this age; stop the round when the guess is right. If a child gets stuck, let the guessers throw out silly wrong answers first, which always gets a giggle and gives the performer time to think.
Ages 6 to 9: short rounds, teams and a timer
Children who read can take on more. Use two or three teams, a one-minute timer and a score target such as ten points so a game finishes in a quarter of an hour. Mix easy words with a few harder ones like occupations or movie characters, and allow one pass per turn so nobody is stuck on a word they have never met. Mixing kids and adults in each team keeps the game fair and gives younger players someone to learn from.
Simple rules that keep kids in the game
Say the rules out loud before the first turn: no talking, no pointing at objects in the room, and everyone cheers for every guess. Give younger players a longer time than the older ones. Let the performer use sounds for animals if the age group is very young. Celebrate effort as much as correct answers, and finish on a win by ending the game while everybody still wants one more round. A short game that ends happily beats a long one that ends in tears.
Charades for kids with Showem
Showem turns one phone into a complete charades game: add the players, split them into teams, choose the categories and the difficulty, and start the timer. The easy level is made for younger players, and the animals and food categories are a great start for children. For kids who cannot read yet, you can mark a player as unable to read and they get a picture to act out instead of a word, while the rest of the family keeps playing with words. It is free on iOS and Android and works offline.