On Monday we…
…played Spelling Hopscotch. Learning spelling words can be boring and laborious. But if your kids are like my kids, then some fun outside activity combined with some good ol’ fashioned spelling learning can make the process fresh and fun! Here’s how we did it this morning….
Step 1: draw a basic hopscotch pattern with chalk on the paving.
Step 2: fill the blocks with letters/sound combinations.
Step 3: give a spelling list to the participating child/ren.
Step 4: watch them spell out each word by hopping from block to block.
Step 5: when they are finished hopping out the words, send them to the black board to write it up.
BONUS: include the non-reading children by getting them to hop on letter blocks of the same letter, helping them with letter recognition…
…or just let them draw chalk pictures all around the hopscotch area – they’re close at hand, in the fresh air and sunshine and having fun… what more can one ask for?
Hangman makes for another fun way to learn spelling words…. Please share your ideas too!
Brilliant way of making spelling lessons fun!
I saw in last months garden magazine how to make colourful ‘hop scotch’ slabs. Hop scotch was such a popular game in my mum and my granny’s day.
I hope to make a hopscotch corner at the back of HA. Someone please tell me how you actually play hopscotch!
Granny Sally
It’s interesting that you mixed capital letters and lower case – I think that is a good thing – get them used to it early!
Magic paintbrushes in the air are good too, (pretend they have one, pull it out of their pocket, put in bucket, choose a colour, write in the air) and also real buckets of water with a paintbrush. Water paint the spelling, no mess at the end! Its very good for their gross motor skills, get the whole arm doing the spelling, then when they write smaller their muscles have already learned the movement. Using hand memory is fun too – but much easier with cursive writing. Write a word with eyes open and then with eyes shut- kids love the fact that their hands remembered the spelling! A shower curtain hung up (over the grass) can be painted on too and washed off. And yes, the school janitors HATE me! lol
Use other media like lego to spell the word, skipping ropes, string, .. I think I will stop there before I bore you. Love reading your blog
Tracy
yeah – Kiera can cope with the different letters, although I did intend on only having capitals, a lower case “e” slipped in there (mom rushing!). For Katie, I just did capital letter recognition. We’ve also done the write in the air thing – or we write on each other’s backs and get to guess what word the other one wrote. That’s fun too. But you’ve got some great ideas there! I think I may just use a few!
Interestingly, yesterday was Kiera’s first exposure to those spelling words and today we did a “pre test” and she got them ALL right
I hope it sticks!
Hila is just finishing “Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons”.
They introduce capitals right in the end.
She has coped amazingly.
Both her and Tess (5 years ago of course) mixed little b and d.
I found myself 5 years later saying the same things.. where is the d’s tummy? where is the B’s tummy?…. Will I be saying the same thing 3 more kids down the line!? Anyone else have a good trick for remembering b’s and d’s??
Hey Kel – Kiera had/has the same problem. She knows the difference when reading, but still writes them back to front sometimes – she does a lot of mirroring. I made up a memory aid when she was doing 100EZ lessons:
b for back – therefore the back of the “b” comes first.
d for “dummy tummy” – tummy first.
BUT since then, I’ve heard of a good one: bed – b comes before d in the alphabet. – use your hands to show the picture: make a “thumbs up” with both hands, but with fist knuckles touching. Your left hand should form a “b” of the “bed” that your hands make together. And your right hand the d of the “bed”.
If they get confused – get them to make the bed. I think it’s a good visual aid. Tell me how it works!
Love ya!
Hey Taryn
I don’t know how much emphasis there is on computers in homeschooling, but it is huge here in the UK and the kids are becoming computer literate from before they turn 4! We all have interactice whiteboards up in the classrooms so there’s a lot more access to interactive games and resources in every area of the curriculum – useful in a country when being outside doesn’t happen all that much!
Anyway, here’s a spelling site where you can put in your own words and there’ll be a whole load of games to help learn them. http://www.spellingcity.com/
Also, don’t know if you’ve ever seen the site topmarks.co.uk but it’s one we use ALL the time as it’s a great one stop shop for all our IT resource needs, in every area of the curriculum…check it out.
xxBelinda
I love the bbc word blender!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/clusters/blender/game.shtml
if you do nothing he really rolls his eyes