Spelling Isn't for Sissies.

Overall, Jerry is doing pretty well in school this year. He is working more independently at times and grasping more concepts. He still gets easily frustrated when something is "too hard." Right now, that is spelling. It is the cause of many meltdowns, tantrums, aggressive outburts, and quite a few choice curse words (hmmm, if only he could spell those). His ABA's and I have been working diligently to make spelling more "fun" and less difficult for him. That in itself has been a challenge. There are only so many ways to learn to spell besides memorization and sounding out the words, and let's face it, the English language is hard! Unless of course, you have Pinterest!

So, Jerry gets 10 new spelling words every two weeks before he is tested on them. Time to get creative. We have used his cards to play Tic Tac Toe and BINGO. We have given him letter beads and pipe cleaners to practice spelling his words with. We have hidden his words around the living room and given him a Nerf gun and ammo to hunt them down and blast them with. We have written his words with a dry erase marker on the back glass door to shoort his sticky Nerf bullets at. It's been a little crazy. Jerry doesn't just learn by hearing and seeing. He needs to be doing. It's how things "stick" for him.

Enter Pinterest. I have made some of these ideas links to give credit where credit is due.

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1. We start with flash cards for his spelling words.
2. Then I print a coloring sheet (random) and make a color by spelling worksheet for him. Pretty easy. Just make a color legend and start filling in the picture with the words.
​3. Magic Letters is the spelling words missing some letters. I have actually written the letters in white crayon. Jerry has to figure out what letters are missing and then he colors over the space with a marker and the white crayon is revealed. He checks to see if he chose the right missing letter.
​4. I made him a generic match the spelling word to the picture worksheet and then he has to write the word on the blank next to each picture.
5. I also made riddles as clues to his spelling words. We read him the riddles and he figures out what word it is and writes it in the space.
6. There is the typical fill in the missing words of the sentences worksheet.
7. Stamp It is similar to the Magic Letters. He figures out the missing letters in the spelling words and then uses an ink pad and rubber letter stamps to fill them in.
8. Connect Four spelling is the game pieces with those circle stickers you use for yard sales covering them. Each one has a different letter on it. Jerry has to find the letters for each spelling word and then drop them into the Connect Four board in order to spell out the word. If he wants to go from top to bottom, he will have to drop the letters in from last to first.
9. Popcorn Words is Jerry's spelling words written on slips of paper and crumpled to look like popcorn pieces. I put them in a popcorn bucket. He pulls them out one at a time and then unfolds them, reads the word, and writes it on the dry erase board.
10. I put letter tiles containing all of the letters in his spelling words in a bag. We just use these to lay out on the table and spell his words with.
11. Hole Punch Words - I wrote the letters to each word at the top of an index card, but I wrote some other random letters in between as well. I give him the word. He uses a hole punch to punch out all of the letters that DON'T belong in the word. Then he is left with an index card with just his spelling word on it.
12. There are five free games I found that work with any spelling list. They are like board games and you use tokens as game markers and their spelling words written on index cards, which we already have. I just found some little trinkets and a die and put them in a baggie to go along with the games. I cut the game boards out and glued them into file folders for durability. You can find the games HERE.
​13. Spelling Battleship is pretty cool. We laminated the game boards so they can be used over and over again. Each player writes their spelling words in random spots on the board. Then you take turns calling out the corresponding letters and numbers to try and "sink each other's battleship." In this case, the ships are spelling words.

Anyway, we have a plastic tote full of these worksheets and games and will adjust them every two weeks when the new spelling words list comes out. Hopefully, these will make spelling a little more "fun."

Who says I ever stopped homeschooling Jerry?!