Online Vocabulary Games

I have been looking for some specific vocabulary games to use with my classes and I found some really interesting options. So I decided to share them with you!
I have chosen to categorize the results into:

• Pre-school games
• Games for specific vocabulary topics
• Games for mixed vocabulary topics
• Tools to create games

Pre-school games
Pre-school games
A variety of simple games for colours, shapes, animals, numbers and the alphabet.
Do2learn
Another collection of games: colours, feelings, numbers…and more.
ABCya!
Yet another collection of simple games.
What colour is it?
A simple game about colours.

Games for specific vocabulary topics
Actions and commands (based on suggestions by Larry Ferlazzo from his blog post)
Subservient Chicken 
Give orders t the chicken and watch him perform your commands… only if they are appropriate!
Simon Sez Santa
Tell Santa what to do. Many languages to choose from!
I Do Dog Tricks 
Give order to the cute dog and watch him perform the actions.

Spelling
Spelling City 
Create your own game with your word list.
Kidspell.com 
Another collection of spelling games that you can customize.
Spelling Connections 
This game is about spelling and sounds…interesting to try.

Body parts
Matching words and pictures of body parts
Listen to the a sentence and find the picture for the right body part 
Listen to the word and find the picture.  There´s a study mode and a quiz mode.

Collections of games
Vocabulary Building Games 
Free English Lessons Online
More than 40 English vocabulary picture matching quizzes on a variety of topics such as Weather, Sports, Transport, etc created by Sue Lyon Jones.
Word Games
A great collection of word games categorized by difficulty.
Digital Dialects
A nice collection of simple games about numbers, colours, food, clothing and animals. The main page offers 60 languages to choose from!
Learning chocolate 
Great variety of topics and several types of games for each topic, including word recognition from audio recordings, matching, etc.
ESL Fun Vocabulary Games 
Picture labeling games on a variety of topics like parts of the house, school, pets, fruit, etc. You can also check the assorted vocabulary games menu for more options.
Language Guide English 
Lots of quizzes for more than 40 topics available in study and quiz modes.
Learning Games for Kids 
A great site with thousands of games. Check the vocabulary games section.

Games for mixed vocabulary topics
Rain words 
Complete the crossword by dragging the images to the appropriate place in the crossword. You can choose the level of difficulty.
Fastr 
A Flickr-fed game where you have to guess the tag for the given image.
Photo Munchrs 
You are given a tag and must click on the pictures that match it. I hear about this one from Nik Peachey in his Daily English Activities blog post.
Vocab Sushi 
Multiple Choice game to develop your vocabulary. Good for upper intermediate learners.
Free Rice 
Another multiple choice game. Your scores are translated into help for the World Food Programme.

Tools to create games
Eclipse crossword 
An easy to use crossword puzzle creator.
Word Magnets
Type or paste a text and get the word magnets for it to play around. I heard about this one from Russell Stannard, who has a detailed video about using it.


You will certainly need to explore them to see if they are appropriate for your context... I hope the list is a useful starting point!

Update (22/9/2011)

These articles from Free Technology for Teachers are worth sharing

• 7 Resources for Teaching and Learning Vocabulary

   

• Vocabulary Widgets for Your Blog or Website

 

10 Free Digital Game-Based Learning Resources for English Classrooms

Digital game-based learning (DGBL) can be a good way to get students of any age excited about learning. The right games can serve as effective teaching tools that not only speed up the learning process, but also improve comprehension. There are many different learning-based games that can be played online. Here are a few to try with your English classroom:



Free Rice - FreeRice is an online trivia game created by the United Nations World Food Program to provide free education and end world hunger. When visitors answer game questions correctly, rice is donated to hungry people around the world. Trivia categories include English vocabulary, English grammar, geography, math, chemistry, language learning, and art.



Free Poverty - Free Poverty is similar to FreeRice in the fact that it donates to needy people whenever visitors answer questions correctly. The difference is that Free Poverty donates cups of clean drinking water rather than rice and focuses solely on geography trivia.



ProProfs Brain Games - This site offers free puzzle and brain games, such as word searches, hangman, memory games, and word jumbles. Visitors can play existing games or create their own online learning games and puzzles.



Fit Brains - Fit Brains is an online brain fitness platform that provides fun games to educate and exercise the brain. The site's word fragment games have been proven to improve English language vocabulary, comprehension and fluency.



Learning Today - Learning Today, a provider of Internet-based education, offers several free reading games that can be played online. All of the games are research-based and designed to improve phonemic awareness, vocabulary, and reading comprehension.



Spell It! - This game, from TheProblemSite.com, displays a picture of a common object and then asks players to spell out the name of the object. Most of the words in this game are spelled the way they sound, making it a good game for beginning English students with limited vocabulary.



Tutpup Spelling - Tutpup is a new digital game-based learning site that offers fun and competitive English and math games. The site's spelling game, which requires players to listen to a word and then spell it out, is ideal for English classrooms.



iKnowThat.com - This education site provides a wide range of online language arts games that would work well in the English classroom. Each game includes a teacher's guide to help educators choose the proper level of play for their students.



Sesame Street Games - Sesame Street's online learning games are perfect for younger children who are learning the alphabet and older children who are just learning to read.



Big Universe - Big Universe isn't technically a DGBL site but it could easily be used as one. The site allows visitors to create and publish their own books online--an excellent activity for any English class.



Guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about online degrees for OnlineDegreePrograms.org.