Adrienne, Andre and I spent part of Friday afternoon playing Scrabble. I decided that this year, for at least part of the year, we would practice spelling using games only. No boring curriculum, no long lists of spelling words to memorize. At least for now...!
We are using the book that came with the Scrabble game to check on the words we are coming up with, and once we find out if it is a "real" word, then if we don't know what it means or forgot, we look it up in the dictionary. Andre seems to be really good at coming with words that we never heard of before! Celeste is even better at inventing words, but she didn't play this time!
I miss playing Scrabble. It is such a great game for older children. When Gavin is old enough, we will also probably toss the spelling curriculum and play adult games! You can't go wrong with Scrabble and a dictionary. :)
ReplyDeleteWhat a great idea to encourage learning new words. We've got junior scrabble which we play regularly but don't check the dictionary over meanings.
ReplyDeleteHow school has a new way of teaching spelling by sorting/writing words according to the make up eg make take race grace all with long a and silent e then they would have gain paint etch all with long a sounds. As they get better at spelling the words get longer but it is still based on same principle. My son's spelling has improved so much compared to rote learning.