Family Friendly Games: Tongue Twisters A to Z

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Gear up for Family Fun!

You don’t have to spend a lot of money or travel all over the country to have fun with your family. Find your own fun right in your living room when you play games together! Tongue twisters provide entertainment for kids and adults of all ages. Practice them together or turn the twisters into a trying tournament!

Whether you have ten minutes before dinner or a whole weekend of staying in, use these tongue twisters - sorted conveniently from A to Z - to help you find family fun wherever you are!

A to Z, Say It with Me!

Try these tongue twisters with your family! See who can say them five times fast.

Allie and Alex’s anniversary is in April.*

A big black bug bit a big black bear and made the big black bear bleed blood!^

Can you can a can as a canner can can a can?

Doug digs dirty dugouts.

Eleven benevolent elephants*

Friendly Fred flips fine flapjacks Fridays.

Gilbert Grape googled gooey grubs.

Happy hippies hop in heathered hideouts.

Is this your sister’s sixth mister?

Jumping jackalopes juggle in the jungle.

Kate kisses keith quickly.

Little ladies licked Lily’s lentil soup.

The myth of Miss Muffet mystifies most.

No new newts in the news!

Octopi occupy odd outlets.

Patty pinched her pennies perfectly.

The queen in green screamed.*

Ricky raised roaring rhinos.

Six selfish shellfish.^

Tiny Tim trades tickets with Tom.

Unique New York.^

Vicky’s vaulting varies.

Willy washed Wally’s socks.

X marks the parks!

Yellow yaks take naps.

Zebras zoom to Zanzibar.

NOTE: I made most of these up myself. However, the tongue twisters with an * next to them came from this site; the ones with ^ came from this one.

DIY Tongue Twisters

Make up your own tongue twisters for your family game night! Here are some tips to help you get started:

  • Think alphabetically, of course! Most tongue twisters involve the repetition of the same letter, so try to think of a letter and then make a list of as many words as you can come up with that start with that letter. Choose words from that list for your tongue twister and fill in the rest of the sentence with other words. The classic example of this: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers!
  • It’s Rhyme Time! Sometimes a great tongue twister rhymes. Instead of every word starting from the same letter, the main words in a tongue twister might have the same vowel sounds instead. As an example of this: Lean Mean Eating Machine.
  • Shorten it up. A tongue twister doesn’t have to be a full sentence; often it’s just three or four words that start with the same letter, repeated over and over. For example: Tim’s tippy toes.

Tips for Using Tongue Twisters

Use these tongue twisters as a game for family fun! Here are some suggestions:

  • Twister Bee - Print off the tongue twisters above and cut them out individually on small slips of paper. Put them into a hat and have your family members take turns stepping in front of the group to tell a twisted tale. Have the family members take a slip out of the hat and try to say the tongue twisters five times fast. Turn it into a competition; keep score of how many twisters your family members successfully spout. For younger family members, have them say the twisters once instead of five times.
  • Twisted Alphabet - Use the alphabetical order of the twisters above to your advantage. Have each family member say a tongue twister that coordinates with the first letter of his name, or have them say a twister and then find five objects around your home that start with the same letter highlighted in the tongue twister.
  • Letter Lessons - Have your littlest family members practice tongue twisters as they learn the letters of the alphabet. When you work on one particular letter (at home or the letter of the week in school), bring out the tongue twister that goes with that letter and say it aloud together throughout the week.
  • Illustrated Fun - Give each family member a tongue twister. Have them draw a picture of the tongue twister in action such as a drawing of sleeping yellow yaks or zebras zooming in a car. Then they can share the tongue twister and their pictures with the rest of the family in a ramped-up version of Show and Tell!

Rousing Resources

If you make it through all 26 of the tongue twisters above, find some more of your own!

Visit this huge collection of Tongue Twisters in English!

Take a look at another list of alphabetized tongue twisters!

Put a foreign language spin on your family fun when you play around with tongue twisters in Spanish and French!

Expand beyond the traditional with other family-friendly games!