Spelling Word Detectives

Hello Blog World!!!

My first official post and it includes a freebie!!!

I wanted to share the Spelling activity that my firsties do on Thursday to help prep them for their weekly Spelling test the next day. We play Word Detectives and they love it. I told them today that's what we were doing & there were cheers of glee as they entered the room.

I just created this cute & snazzy version, which I've been meaning to do for weeks, in the mean time the kids had to use the boring version...but here it is the upgraded version. (Click the link below the picture for your copy) You'll see on the clues notepad, I've made that my spot to write the weekly spelling pattern(s) as a reminder for them.

Click here to snag your copy!

How they use this record sheet:

Each student circulates around the room and visits each of the 10 stations, where they find a spelling word scrambled up. They have to unscramble the word and record the correct spelling in the corresponding numbered box. I try to give them a variety of tools to spell their words. For example, I use letter stamps, felt, magnet, die-cut and Scrabble letters. Sometimes I'll use the fridge magnet tool on the Smartboard and have that be a station or write letters on index cards and put them in a pocket chart. Below are some pictures of them unscrambling their words with the spelling pattern -ow. 

Letters written on different shapes

Letter stamps

Die-cute letters

Magnets on the chalkboard

The old boring record sheet :(

This version has a list of their Spelling words on it; however, now that we've been doing this for a while, I just display the list on the Smartboard and ask them to try and figure out the word first and if they get stuck to look at the Smartboard. They are still doing a great job doing it this way.

Since I see my students in a pull-out setting this is easier for me with 6 students, then it would be in a regular classroom. So here's my solution for a regular classroom on how to use this during Word Work.

If it was me (& I hope soon it is me with a regular classroom position) I would buy 10 small pencil box/storage box from the dollar store and put letter tiles in each box and label the outside of each box 1-10 and store in a crate, so students have easy access to this activity, yet it doesn't require much set-up and can be stored easily. 

I hope you can find a use for this in your classroom & that your students love it as much as mine do. Enjoy!!!