When I was in school and worked on spelling words it was always super boring! We mostly just had to write our spelling words over and over throughout the week, leading up to the dreaded spelling test on Friday’s. It was no fun and everyone dreaded it.
I want learning in our homeschool to be fun, enjoyable, and I love hands on! We have the blessing to mold our lessons however we want and that is what I’m doing with spelling!
In my 1st Grade Curriculum post I shared the Language Arts curriculum we are using this year and how I felt it was lacking in the area of spelling. In trying to keep our year as simple as possible I didn’t want to add an additional spelling curriculum.
So I found these free printable spelling lists for 1st grade and decided to work through them on our own. The weekly lists go from week 1 all the way to week 32. (Same link also has spelling word lists for grades 2 and 3.)
Here is the weekly spelling schedule we hope to follow:
- Monday: Introduce new words and write them each three times.
- Tuesday: Activity
- Wednesday: Day off- We will read a book together and see if she can find some of her spelling words.
- Thursday: Activity
- Friday: Spelling Test
Twice a week we will do fun activities to practice our spelling words. Here are some of the fun activities we use:
1. Moveable Montessori Letters– We love using these letters to practice spelling our words and I will even let her use them for our spelling tests at the end of the week. I call out a word and she finds all the letters to spell it. Here are some Magnetic Moveable Letters also.
2. Felt letters– We use these large felt letters the same as the moveable letters to build spelling words, but they are bigger so I will lay them all out on the floor or hide them around the room for her to find and spell with.
3. Sand– Every kid loves using our sand tray to write and spell their spelling words in. This is actually my daughters favorite.
4. Different writing instruments- I found this printable years ago to use for handwriting practice, but now we use it for spelling! Unfortunately I can’t find it anywhere to link for you, but you could still create this on regular lined paper. It is great for writing spelling words numerous times, but keeping it exciting by having to switch different writing utensils such as a pencil, crayon, or marker.
6. Spelling Dice– You can find this large dice at the dollar store or on Amazon that have dry erase circles on each side. I will write our spelling words on each side, have her roll it and write down the one it lands on. Love that I can erase the words and add new ones each week. Also great to practice reading sight words.
5. Roll & Write- This activity is a combination of the 2 above (numbers 4 & 5.) On the dry erase dice I will write something different to write with. Sometimes I will even add a color (ex: green crayon, purple marker, blue colored pencil.) For each spelling word have your child roll the dice to see what they have to use to write with. This is my daughters favorite as well!
7. Fidget spinner– We love using a fidget spinner that I just added an arrow to with tape. On a piece of paper I will write her spelling words in a circle. She will spin the fidget spinner in the center and write the spelling word it lands on. This is also great to practice reading sight words!
8. Letter beads– You can find these beads at the dollar store or craft store. She will spell out her words with the letters, beading them onto a pipe cleaner.
9. Letter Straws– My friend Tiffany shared these and they are so fun! Pick the correct letters to build spelling words and click them together.
10. Letter Stamps– Using letter stamps to build spelling words is also a fun and simple way to practice.
At the end of our week we have a quick spelling test and will put a sticker on our list of the completed weeks spelling words!
All of these are great ways to keep spelling exciting and something they don’t complain about doing! With these I hope to keep my kids excited about learning and spelling each week!
These spelling word lists are a great way for me to know what words to give my daughter as well as keep me on schedule. However, do not feel tied down to these lists! Some weeks, if we are really busy, we might only do a couple words instead of all of them. If your child knows some words easily already, skip them, and give yourself the freedom to even take a week off without feeling behind. If we don’t finish all 32 weeks of words by the end of 1st grade, it is ok! We will just continue on in 2nd grade until we master them all! We have the freedom and flexibility to go as fast or slow as we need to!
Have a great week!
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