Woah!…. My life got a whole lot busier over the last 8 months! Firstly, I became a single parent – which definitely reduces leisure time! – and then shortly afterwards I found myself fostering a beautiful little 6-year-old girl! Oh, and my latest book, “Best of the Best: Engagement“, has just been shortlisted for “Education Book of the Year” by Foreword Reviews!
Looking after three very different children who attend three different schools has made evenings and homework a pretty interesting challenge. What with my 16-year-old revising years’-worth of GCSE French vocab, and lists of KS1 and KS2 words coming home in never-ending streams, it’s sometimes felt like a Spelling Factory in our house.
To avoid the spiel of spellings feeling like an endless chore we’ve had fun coming up with a variety of ways to make spellings fun. And yes, even my far-too-cool 16-year-old got involved! So this month, I’m sharing 10 fun ways to help pupils learn spellings and vocab. From GCSE vocab revision to EYFS phonics and everything in between….Just choose the most helpful ideas for your students – or maybe even for your own children at home!
- Teach Me, Test Me! (Great for KS2,3,4 &5!)
Give each pupil a card that features a word and its definition. Allow pupils to circulate around the room and pair up. Pupil A asks the question, “How do you spell [word featured on the card]?” Pupil B attempts to spell the word. If she is incorrect, Pupil A shows her the word and teaches her the spelling. If, on the other hand, Pupil B answers correctly first time, Pupil A asks a second question: “What does it mean?”. He can check his partner’s answer against the answer on the card. Alternatively, the second question could be: “Put the word into a sentence” or “Give an example of this term” or, if it’s a verb, “Put it into the past tense”.
Now comes the really important bit. When they have both used their own cards to test and teach each other, they must swap their cards over. In this way, each pupil takes what they’ve just learnt and begins to embed and reinforce it by teaching it to someone else!
2. Pool our Power! (Great for KS2,3,4 &5)
If you’ve set spellings, vocab or key terms to be learnt for homework, try this activity before you administer the test. Tell the class that by pooling their power together, they are going to attempt to remember all 10 (for example) spellings. Students circulate around the class with an empty 10-square grid. With each classmate they speak to, they share one spelling and collect a new one for their grid. If a student already has the spelling they want to give, they’ll need to provide a different one – either from their own memory or one they’ve already collected. This activity will even enable participation from students who were absent when the spellings were issued – they will still end up with a grid featuring all 10 spellings!
As an extension to this task, students can continue to circulate, now adding definitions or examples into their grids, as well as double-checking spellings, or even identifying connections between spellings!
3. Recall cards (Great for KS2,3,4 &5!)
These can be made as part of a purposeful revision activity in class or as a great way to revise at home. Students make a set of cards. On one side they write the spelling or key term and on the other side they write the definition. Students should set all the cards out with the definitions facing upwards. They choose a card and then attempt to recall the word and spelling. They should then turn the card to check if they’re correct. If they are correct then they can leave that card turned over. If they got it wrong then they should replace this card as it was and come back to it after trying a few other cards. Once a student has successfully turned over all of her cards, she can try performing the task in reverse (looking at the spelling and recalling the definition!). As an extension, students can be challenged to time themselves and try to beat their personal best by recalling the information faster and faster.
4. Multi-sensory Writing (Great for EYFS and KS1!)
Make writing exciting by allowing children to practise letter shapes with their fingers in a variety of different ingredients. Try sand, shaving foam, chocolate spread, salt, flour, etc. This type of activity is also fun to set for homework.
5. Easy-Peasy-Water-Squeezy. (Great for EYFS and KS1!)
On good-weather days, take children outside with squeezy water bottles to practise their letter formation on a grand scale. This really makes children think hard about each letter’s direction and shape.
6. Lego Word Building (Great for EYFS and KS1!)
Write on the bricks with a sharpie pen! You can write individual letters so that children can practise building words, or whole words to build sentences. You might even ask children to fix all the verbs or nouns together or match synonyms or antonyms!
7. Simple Scrabble (Great for KS1 & KS2!)
Use old versions of this popular game to allow children to spell out words together. Or simply use your own individual letters written on squares of card. Children are challenged to criss-cross their words by finding letters in common. They should try to get all of the given spellings onto the design.
8. Clothepegs (Great for EYFS & KS1)
Write individual letters onto wooden clothepegs and provide the words to be learnt written on cards. Allow the children to attach the correct lettered clothepegs along the top of the cards – matching the letters to the letters in the word to be learnt.
9. Wibbly Words (Great for EYFS & KS1)
Help children to really focus on the shapes of letters by allowing them to form their spellings using a material such as modelling clay or silver foil.
10. Guess Which! (Great for students of all ages!)
Get the students to set their spellings or key terms out in a grid that covers an entire page. Working in pairs, Student A secretly chooses one of the words and Student B must ask him “yes or no questions” to determine which word he has chosen. You might like to provide helpful example questions, such as, “Does this word have more consonants than vowels?”, “Is this word a verb?”, “Is this word a homonym?”, “Does this word have more than one meaning?”, “Does this word contain a split diagraph?”, etc. Student B can gradually eliminate words by covering them with tokens or little pieces of paper, until they identify the correct word. This activity can help pupils to really study and think about terms and their meanings from different angles.
Now it’s over to you! What alternatives to “Look-Cover-Write-Check” have you found useful in helping pupils learn key terms or spellings? Please share your ideas in the comments below!
Wishing you a wonderful end to the Spring Term,
Isabella x
