As you know, I’m all about play based learning, particularly for older children, and I definitely think games and hands on activities should be used to learn spellings. I also believe that children should know the meaning of the words they are learning to spell and how to use them in their writing otherwise what’s the point in learning them? So here’s a mix of some well known games all thrown into one spelling game!
I would use this with their 10 weekly spellings that they may have been given or a selection of the statutory word lists for each year group.
🎲 Pick a spelling word from a pile face down on a table.
🎲 Roll the dice to see which instruction you get.
🎲 Complete your instruction in front of a partner or small group and whoever guesses the word correctly gets a point. Alternatively you can play in teams and if the team guesses the word correctly they get a point.
1. Spell it – the child with the card can look at the word and spell it aloud to their team. If they say the word correctly, they win a point.
2. Act it – act out the word to your team.
3. Write it in a sentence but leave the spelling word out for the team to guess what it is.
4. Draw it – in true Pictionary style!
5. Spell it backwards – again the person with the card can read the word and spell it backwards for their team to guess it.
6. Describe it – describe the meaning of the word without saying the word.
