Spelling Practice with Nautical Flags

Back when we practiced fractions with nautical flags, I discovered something pretty awesome about them: there is a flag for each letter of the alphabet! Cool, huh?

Deciphering secret codes is ALWAYS a favorite activity of my son’s so I knew that using the flags to practice sight and spelling words would be a hit. I was right.

I designed a nautical flag alpha key, three pages of sight word codes, and a 1-page sentence cipher. Download them here.

When my son got home from school, I quickly took his new spelling list and made that into a customized worksheet for him. While I was doing that, my son read aloud a book by Lois Lenski: The Little Sailboat. It didn’t explain the flags or teach him much about sailing, but it was a cute fiction story that related to our activity and snuck in some reading practice (hee hee).

Afterwards, I gave him the key and a few pages to decode. He got right after it, completing the pages in no time. He didn’t even realize he was practicing for the week’s spelling test. Mission accomplished!

The answers to the pages I made are below. Enjoy!

The sentence cipher on page 4 says, "Good job. You are so awesome!"

EXTENSION IDEA: Print four pages of the nautical flag alpha key. Set one aside. Glue the other three pages to chipboard (aka empty cereal boxes), cut out, and attach magnet tape to the back (I did something similar here). That way you can easily make codes out of ANY words ... or better yet, your child can make codes for their friends or siblings to decipher!

Magnetic Snowman Hangman [Spelling Practice]

Okay, okay, so my son didn’t really hang our snowman (that's kind of morbid), but he did build it gradually with each letter he guessed incorrectly in my mystery word. I began with a few of the spelling words my son’s teacher sent home and progressed to a few words of my choosing – the current season (winter) and a favorite toy (ninjago).

To make our game, I created a snowman body and some attire. (Download a 1-page PDF of the snowman I made here.)

Then, I printed them on a sheet of sticker paper and attached it to an 8½- x 11-inch piece of magnet paper (a 3-pack runs about $5 at local craft stores). 

The magnet paper is thin enough to cut through so I got busy with the scissors cutting all of the shapes out. 

Yes, the stick arms ARE a pain to cut out, but it's totally worth it.

One of the shapes I made is an oval game label. It worked perfectly to hold a piece of notebook paper on our refrigerator. 

On the paper were the blanks I’d drawn, one for each letter in the word I was thinking of.

Under the blanks, I recorded the letters he guessed that weren’t in the mystery word (to keep him from guessing them twice).

I’m not going to lie; I gave him hints – sometimes the number of vowels or other clues – to keep him from getting frustrated.

This was so much fun!

NOTE: Our printer’s color ink was pretty depleted, hence our snowman has a pink carrot nose and blue (instead of green) scarf. We still think he's pretty cute though.

Paper Word Chains

The spelling words just keep on a ’comin. I hope I don’t run out of creative ways for my son to practice them anytime soon! So far, he’s gotten perfect scores on the post-tests his teacher is giving each week. (Keep your fingers crossed!)

Simply reading the words on his spelling list and having him write them never goes well. [Imagine copious amounts of whining.]

When I read another blogger’s post about how all kids like making paper chains, I recalled the few other times he’d made them and realized that she was speaking words of profound wisdom!

So when my son came home toting a short list of the week’s spelling words, I was ready. I’d cut what seemed like a zillion strips of colored construction paper (okay, I may be exaggerating a bit; there were more like 30).

While he tossed back some fruit snacks, I used a permanent marker to write one letter of each word from the list onto every strip. Then I scrambled the strips, and handed him the pile along with the stapler.

I told him to lay out the strips so he could see all the letters. Then I read the first word on his spelling list: dog. (The words get progressively harder.) He grabbed a strip with a d, an o, and a g and put them in order.

Then I reminded him how to make a paper chain. Just like the blogger had said, he was positively giddy at the mere mention of doing this.

One by one, he worked through each of the words, making several small chains, until the grand finale, when he made yesterday into a chain. “Did I get it right, Mom?” he asked.

“Yep, that’s how you spell yesterday,” I responded. To which, he exclaimed loudly, “WOO HOO!”

Before we finished for the day, he stretched out the chains, putting them in order from longest to shortest along the table’s edge – yesterday at the beginning and dog at the end.

Later that night, he added loops between each word chain to make one very long necklace. I’d wish that he could wear it for his post-test, but after this activity, I just don’t think he’ll need it.

TIP: If you do this activity with your child, be sure to put a line under letters like n and u because if the strips get turned upside down, the letters could easily be confused! 

NOTE: It's easy for the letters once added to the chain to appear upside down. I didn't worry about this; after all, it's the spelling and order of the letters that's most important.

Easy Reader Puzzle

When my son used to read aloud, he sort of sounded like a robot. It always left me wondering, “Does he really comprehend the story or is he just reading the words?” To satisfy my curiosity awhile back, I got him a new Level 1 easy reader Hot Wheels book called Volcano Blast!

Then I created a crossword puzzle whose hints and answers all related to the story. To do this, I used Discovery Education’s free online Criss Cross puzzlemaker. I kept the clues to a minimum (only 9), left the default settings for the number of squares as is (Width 50; Height 50), and made the puzzle squares large enough for his giant handwriting (square size = 50).

After he read the book, I gave him the puzzle and explained how the answers to the clues would either be written across or down with one letter in each box. I answered the first question as an example.

To my surprise, he did a great job remembering the story details! In order to spell the words correctly, though, he had to turn back to the pages of the book and locate the answer words.

Although the crossword squares were larger than what you’d find in the local newspaper, they still challenged my son’s fine motor skills. Not only that, but now he knows how to spell the word ‘lava.’

Spelling with Cheez-Its

I love the Scrabble Junior Cheez-Its. Whenever it’s my son’s turn to take a snack to school and I’m too busy (or lazy) to whip up muffins or trail mix, these are my go-to purchase.

Since my son often does his afterschool activities while eating a snack, using Cheez-Its for our activity was perfect! I created a worksheet with some blanks and a grid. 

Download the Cheez-It Spelling worksheet here.

Then I added the snack crackers to the grid, being careful not to include any letter more than once.

Next I told my son to look and see what words he could make with the letters. For now, I let him move the crackers to try-out different combinations but eventually, we’ll play this like Boggle, where he’ll have to find the words in the grid, without moving the letters.

 

This may be one of the simplest activities we’ve done, but it was deliciously fun and can easily be repeated over and over again without getting boring.

My son came up with some great words – including the name of his new LEGO Ninjago figure Zane.

Sometimes it’s fun to play with your food.

Just ask my son!

Twist-a-Letter Word Maker

Educational toy stores take a close second behind book stores on my list of favorite places to shop. When we were shopping not that long ago at one downtown, I spied a little toy that I just couldn’t get out of my head. Just because its price tag was higher than I was willing to pay, doesn’t mean I wanted to deprive my son of the experience it could provide. I don’t know what it was called, but I’ve named my DIY version the Twist-a-Letter Word Maker.

What you need:

• 1 ¼-inch plastic PVC pipe, cut with a hacksaw to about 12 inches long (costs about $2)
• An empty paper towel tube
• 1 sheet of sticker paper
• 2 rubberbands
• A 1-inch by 8-inch strip of heavy-duty laminate (I used a scrap from another project)
• Exacto cutting blade
• Fine-tip black permanent marker

TIP: Take your paper towel tube to the home improvement store with you. It should fit very snugly over the pipe. If it doesn’t, you haven’t found the right size. My hubby kindly cut ours, but you might ask if an employee at the store could cut yours while you’re there.

Once your PVC tubing has been cut, slide the paper towel tube over it. Now print the PDF I made with letters on it onto a sheet of sticker paper; cut the columns of letters where indicated. Keep the strips in order. Wrap the end with the excess paper first, so the end of the strip with the letters closest to it overlaps the plain paper. Wrap the first strip around the paper towel tube next to the tube’s left edge.

Carefully use an Exacto knife to cut the paper-towel tube right next to the edge of the sticker paper you just applied. Once it has been cut, add the next strip to the remaining piece of the tube. Make sure the letters are right-side up. Continue to use the strips as a guide and cut until all the lettered sticker columns have been applied to the tube and cut into rings.

Now draw an open rectangle (mine was approximately ¾-inch by 6-inches) with permanent marker in the middle of your strip of lamination. Place this over the top of your lettered rings on the PVC pipe and use rubberbands on either end to hold the lamination in place. Now you can rotate the lettered rings and align them inside the rectangle to make words. All that’s left to do is hand it over to your child.

Set the timer and let the word-making begin!

I gave my son seven minutes to see how many words he could make. When the timer went off, he had 10 words on the page.

Next time we “play” with the Twist-a-Letter Word Maker, my son can work on beating his 10-word score! 

Keyboard Codes (Spelling Practice with a Homemade Laptop)

My son LOVES the computer, so I’m constantly in search of great online (educational) games for him to play. When I saw Joyful Mama’s post on the felt laptop she made for her daughter, Sweatpea, it jumpstarted my creative juices.

Since we’re still working on spelling those word-wall words my son is bringing home from school (check out Roll & Write for some history on that), I thought a DIY laptop would be perfect!

I knew, though, that if I put a pretend laptop in front of my son and asked him to type the words he would lose interest quickly. To prevent that from happening, I created ciphers (each was a sight word from school) for him to decode using the keyboard. This was SO MUCH fun!

1. Make a DIY Laptop

Use a large flat, rectangular piece of corrugated cardboard (mine was the packaging that came with a 16x20 picture frame I bought recently). Score in the middle so you can fold your laptop. Cut the holes off of an 8 ½ x 11 plastic sheet protector. Use a glue gun to adhere the sleeve above the fold for your laptop’s monitor.

Download and print the keyboard I made (click here). Glue it to your cardboard laptop below the fold. If you want, draw a rectangle below the spacebar for a touchpad.

Next cut another piece of cardboard to make a kickstand to keep your laptop’s monitor from flopping over. Attach to the back of the “monitor” using a glue gun.

2. Read

I love to pair a great book with every activity, so for this one we read Doreen Cronin's Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type. It's hilarious!

3. Help Your Child Decipher Keyboard Codes

Pages 2-4 of the keyboard download have sight-word keyboard codes. Give one of these pages to your child along with the laptop.

The two-digit codes are numerical with the first number indicating the row and the second number representing the number of keys in that row that a child will count (from the left). For example, if the code is 33, a child will count down three rows and over three keys; hence, the letter is D.

4. Have Them Type the Sight Words

This was a lot of word work for my son. Once he completed decoding all 12 words from the first worksheet, I told him to find one 2-letter, 3-letter, and 4-letter word and circle each. Then I slipped his completed keyboard codes paper into the monitor’s plastic sleeve and he typed each of those three words.

When this was done, my son had loads of fun playing with his new “toy.” Since I had all the supplies for this activity on hand, I have no doubt that this is the cheapest computer I will ever buy him.

Roll & Write (with a DIY Dry-Erase Die)

It’s happening – homework! Soon after my son began first grade, he started toting home a list of five words each week. I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure what to do with them. After all, my son could read them without any difficulty and so I just tossed the lists in our mail/bills/household paperwork pile (please tell me we’re not the only family with one of those).

Then a friend whose boy is my son’s best friend enlightened me. Just because my son could read those word-wall words, doesn’t mean he could spell them. Yikes! After mentally beating myself up for a few days, I came up with this little “reusable” activity so those weekly words could get practiced.

First, I made a dry-erase die. To do this, I created a template with squares the same width (2 inches) as Scotch brand packaging tape. I printed it on sticker paper. Then I used post-it notes to mask off the flaps where I’d be gluing the little box together (I didn't think the glue would stay adhered to the slick tape). I added the packaging tape and anywhere that the tape overlapped a sticky note, I carefully lifted the edge of the note and cut along the edge with an Exacto knife.

Afterwards, I peeled the sticker paper's backing off, and stuck the template to the brown side of an empty cereal box I used for sturdiness. Then I cut the whole template out with that same Exacto knife, using a ruler as a straight edge and a cutting board underneath to protect my work surface. 

Once it was cut out, I turned it over and used a ruler and the backside of a butter knife to score the cardboard wherever folding was necessary. Lastly I used my hot glue gun to glue the flaps one or two at a time and folded the box together until the template became a cube. Voila! The tape makes a perfect dry-erase surface!

Next, I used Microsoft Publisher to create a worksheet that has a grid where my son would record the words he rolled.

When my son got home from school, I wrote the words from the list plus one more (die have six sides and I only had 5 words) with a fine-tip dry-erase marker on the die. I also added the words across the top of the worksheet. 

Now all that was left to do was hand it over to my son.

Every time he rolled a word, he wrote it in the appropriate column. When any one column was completely full, he was done. Surprisingly the dry-erase words held up well, without much smearing.  

Download the die template and Roll & Write worksheet here.

My son had loads of fun with this and enjoyed predicting which word he would roll the most times. Whew! Now I can look his teacher in the eye!

Word Scramble with Letter Magnets

Unscrambling words is a fun activity for kids of any age. To make it easy for my son to move the letters around and try different sequences until he unscrambled the word, I made letter magnets. These were simple and affordable.

I used Microsoft Excel® to create a grid with letters in each square (download my template here). I printed the page on cardstock and using a glue stick, attached it to a recycled cereal box for sturdiness. Then I cut the squares out and attached a small piece of magnet tape to the back of each. For the magnet board, I used a cookie sheet.

The words he unscrambled were:

Zip

Rat

Kid

Hot

Cry

Jam

Play

Fish

Gold

Quit

Race (letters can also be reconfigured to spell ‘care’)

Run

Web

Fan

Nest (letters can also be reconfigured to spell ‘nets’)

Jet

Milk

Bump

I scrambled each of the words on the cookie sheet in groupings of six words, starting with three-letter consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words.

My son did great and only needed hints to get the words ‘gold’ and ‘milk’ unscrambled!

B D P Q Practice

Curse those darn lower case letters that look similar; they’re always tripping my son up. He’s mastered ‘p’ and ‘q,’ but ‘b’ and ‘d’ are a different story. To do some drills with him, I made a spinner featuring all four of these letters (download the template here).

I printed the first page of the spinner on heavy-duty colored construction paper, the second on regular office paper. Then I glued both to a recycled cereal box for sturdiness, cut them out, made a hole in the center, and threaded a brad through the center.

When he came home from school, I gave him the spinner and quizzed him asking:

What does (one of the words listed below) start with?

Quail

Dab

Pop

Dog

Bad

Quick

Play

Dunk

Ball

Door

What does (one of the words listed below) end with?

Map

Mad

Scab

Stop

Dab

Bad

Bob

Sob

Said

Lap

I randomly switched between the starts with/ends with questions so my son would have to listen carefully. To answer the questions, he turned the spinner to the appropriate letter.

I’d like to thank the I Can Teach My Child blog that inspired this idea.

Missing Letters Mystery

Everyone loves solving a mystery, right? This activity is proof that my son is among the masses that enjoys a little sleuthing now and then.

I typed up 8 short clues in Microsoft Word® that would help my son answer the ultimate question of “What am I?” I looked at the words in my clues and deleted some letters and phonic blends, inserting blanks instead. It was up to my son to read the clues (with help) and fill in the missing letters. When all the clues were complete, he looked out the window and realized that the mystery object was our mailbox.

I found some alphabet stamps in the dollar bin at our local craft store and snapped them up. While the stamps and ink aren’t necessary for this project, they added to the fun of the activity. If you decide to have your son or daughter stamp the answer, invest in some washable ink. When you see his/her hands and your table, you’ll be glad you did.

Flip It Word Game

Learning to read is hard. I figured that if my son could recognize patterns and similarities in words, reading would be easier. After all, if he knows how to read and spell “mast,” then spelling “last” should be a breeze, right?

Since I wanted to reuse this game again, I laminated it using some packing tape we had lying around the house. Hand your child a tissue and a fine-tip dry-erase marker and this game becomes reusable and portable (because doesn’t getting food at a restaurant and driving to grandma’s house take FOREVER for a 5 year old?!).

Supplies:

6 ruled 3x5 (or larger) index cards

Stapler

Packing tape

Scissors or a cutting tool

Pencil

Fine-tip dry-erase marker

tissue/paper towel

small clipboard (optional)

2 rubberbands (optional)

Instructions:

On one card, draw four vertical lines down the ruled side of the card, dividing it into 4 equal rectangles. Put two strips of packing tape over the top, completely covering the card. Cut the remaining 5 cards into the same equal-sized rectangles (you’ll have 20 strips). Cover each with packing tape and trim the excess. Stack each of the strips into four piles of 5. Staple each stack (above the red horizontal rule) on top of the full-size card you’ve already laminated. Now bend each stack of cards back where the red rule is.

Write your first word (one letter per box) on the bottom card. Instruct your child to pull down one or two flaps and write a new letter (or phonic blend, such as “sh” or “ch”) to transform that word into the next word on the list.

Tips: Use ruled index cards to encourage good handwriting. Don’t use tissues with lotion to wipe the letters off with (it’ll smear the dry-erase ink and leave a film on your cards). A small clipboard (approximately $1.50 at an office supply store) and two rubberbands can be used to secure the cards and tabs for your child so it’s easier for him/her to see which tabs have been flipped down.

Like the idea but don’t want to go to all the work? Take the easy route and buy a small whiteboard instead.

Below are some Flip It word lists. Click on the lists to enlarge the image.

Read and Search

To encourage my son to read, I picked up some simple books at our local library. I like the “Rookie Reader” books published by Children’s Press. They’re around 25 pages long, have 10 words or less per page, and often use repetitive words or phrases. My son’s reading has improved and he can read these on his own, which boosts his confidence. I like the vocabulary list on the last page of the books because it makes creating a word search a snap.

This week, I used the book “What Is Up When You Are Down?” by David F. Marx to create a customized word search with the book’s vocabulary list. I’ve discovered that you don’t need expensive software to do this (YAHOO!). I use the word search maker on the A to Z Teacher Stuff® website. What I like about this site’s free tool is that I can customize:

1. How big I want the puzzle to be (10 letters by 10 letters).
2. How large I want the font to be (14 mm).
3. And the directions in which I want the words to be laid out (Forward words only, no diagonal words, up and down words).

Since I printed the crossword so large, I wrote the list of words at the bottom to save paper; it would have printed the list in 14-point font otherwise.

Knowing that he got to do a word search when he was done reading was just the incentive my son needed to read Marx’s book without whining. [Excuse me while I pause to pat myself on the back.] And when it was time to start searching, he didn’t even hesitate to read through the list of words to get started. This is a great activity to encourage early readers and help kids concentrate on how words are spelled, too.