Practicing spelling words does not have to be painful! Here are over 60 fun ways to practice spelling words!
When my oldest went to school, he came home with spelling words that he had to write 10 times each several times a week to study. Oh, the torture! How I wish we had these Ideas to Practice Spelling Words and the ability to mix up how he could study them! It sure would have made it nicer for him.
It wasn’t long after his early years of school that we began to home school and had freedom to learn as it suited us and found many new ways to learn. We still did spelling lists each week and all of our kids grew up to be great spellers!
If you are a classroom teacher looking for ways to have your students practice their words beyond the “write each word ten times each”, you may want to choose an idea for them and assign it for them. Some of these could be used in the classroom too, not just as homework! Let me know in the comments how you use them!
If you are a home schooler, you will be able to allow your child to chose which way they would like to practice. They may do a couple a week. Let me know in the comments which ones they like best.
Some of these will take longer than others but if a child is doing something they enjoy like drawing or creating a puzzle, they will not mind that they are also practicing spelling at the same time. Some are also active or outside so time is not as important to them.
You will find this list invaluable!
See also How to keep your young children busy while homeschooling your older children: We want our little ones to be busy AND happy while we teach our older children. Here’s how.
Ideas to Practice Spelling Words:
Allow stuffed animals or dolls to take turns. Let the student use different voices for them. Several times we studied with Baby Raccoon and Charlie. They were so much help. Instead of just drilling my son with each word, I told Charlie to spell one word (of course my son had to speak for him), then Baby Raccoon got a turn, and then my son. Sometimes he whispered with them to figure out a word, but he did a lot better with their help. It was much more fun with friends!
Take turns quizzing with the student. Let him quiz you. Put words on cards and take turns so you both have a turn at all of the words. When I homeschooled my youngest, it was just the two of us so we did this often. He enjoyed being the teacher and he was still learning by seeing and saying the word and then following along as I spelled it and then we switched places. He knew he had better pay attention as I spelled too, because I didn’t always spell them correctly—just to keep him on his toes, you know! 😊 He always thought it was great fun when I would get one wrong. Sometimes I would hold one of his stuffed animals and let them spell as a variation of the above.
Magnetic letters or tiles on refrigerator or white board
Type the words. One of my sons loved being able to use the computer to type his words.
Form the letters with toothpicks.
Do an action while spelling the word like bouncing a ball, jumping rope, hitting a balloon to keep it in the air or doing jumping jacks. Say a letter of the word as you do each bounce or hit.
Form letters with play dough or clay, pipe cleaners or yarn.
Use alphabet rubber stamps.
Waterfall words; b ba bat bath
Write your words in bubble letters and color them.
Paint the words.
Write a riddle for each word and answer the riddle.
Make words with small objects like cereal, pennies or beans.
Window writing with Crayola window markers.
Write your spelling word with a rhyming word (its ok to make one up if you need to!)
Magic spelling words– “write with a white crayon on white paper then water color pain over to make words appear”.
Take turns spelling one letter at a time like in cranium; this is harder than you may think but a very good exercise!
Write the words all kids of ways; (Don’t worry about penmanship here).
Fast
Eyes closed
Each letter a different color
Fat letters
Wiggly letters
Skinny letters
With opposite hand
Tall letters
Tiny letters
Write a riddle for each word and answer the riddle.
Make up a tune as you spell the word.
Write all of your words and write a line instead of the vowels. Now see if you can remember what vowel goes on each line!
Write with sidewalk chalk.
Write your words in bubble letters and color them.
Letter beads and pipe cleaners or string (I found these beads in Dollar Tree; just $1.25)
Say a cheer!
Cut out letters from magazines or catalogs and glue onto construction paper to spell words. This is great for a creative child and will keep them busy for a long time!
Write the words with your finger in sand, salt, sugar, shaving cream, finger paint or pudding (especially fun!)
Write each spelling word and then make 3 more words from them. (This is easiest with longer words.)
Write a silly sentence for all of your spelling words.
Spell the words in sign language. Find a sign language chart HERE.
Write your words like a crossword puzzle. This is fun to do! (Give some leniency with this. It may be difficult. If there needs to be 2 puzzles or words next to each other, it’s fine.)
Put your words in ABC order—or ZYX order!
Have your child record themselves spelling the words. They love to hear their voices recorded. Say each word and spell it 3 times. Let them listen to them later while taking a bath, coloring or playing.
Spell your words in a whisper, robot voice, mouse voice, ghost voice, bear voice, etc. This would be fun to record too.
Write easiest word 1x, 2nd easiest word 2x, ect. You may need more than 1 list if you have a lot of words.
Write your word in pencil and then trace it with a marker or crayon.
Use a squirt bottle filled with water and make words by squirting water onto dry pavement.
Most of all, don’t stress. If one doesn’t work for them, let them try another way. The most important thing is to keep trying. Just keep up the good work! 🙂
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