4 freebies: Work on Words activities

I'm This Work on Words is an essential part of my Daily 5 routine.  I have some activities that we do the same day every week and some that are choices that my students can pick. I'm going to share 3 of them today. 

I am joining up with Teaching Trio's Favorite Things linky this month. I always find some good ideas there.  

#1.  CHUNK SPELLING. I love this Spelling program that I found at Second Story Window blog a couple of years ago. I have always given my class a combination of sight words plus words from a "family" (-at, -ick, -ail...). This program gives the students practice working with the word families, and also allows them to choose the words they want to work with from the list they generate. (I still pick their sight words). This allows for a wide range of spelling abilities, since they make 3 different lists to choose from.  Words in the first list have a single letter before the stem (cat, sat, bat). Words in the second have 2 letters before the stem (brat, slat, chat). List 3 words are the "challenge" words with letters before, after, or both (catcher, attack, battle, matter). 

Pretty much everything you need for the word family lists is included here in the post, including a year's worth of word families for first, second, and third grades!  The post gives a detailed explanation of how the program works in the classroom. You can click HERE to see the original post and download the Sound Spelling sheets (pictured above is the flip side, the front has single letters), word list suggestions for the year and chunk tabs for grades one to three. 

My only reservation was how to manage the Friday Spelling quiz when everyone has different words. My solution was this:  students buddy up, trade lists, and give each other their quizzes. Works like a charm!  It's our Friday Work on Words. 

This is the sheet I made for them to practice their words on after they make their lists on the back. By the way, they don't actually choose off their own lists. Way too many chances for errors!  We make a chart together (example from Second Story Window in the top picture above) and they copy their words from it. I made versions for a 10 word Spelling list (interlined), and for 10 and 15 words, too. They're not fancy, but they get the job done. If you want them click HeRE.

#2. COLOUR CODER and RACE TO THE TOP. 

On Tuesday my students choose one of these two activities to practice their Spelling words. Both are tremendously popular. 

Race to the Top is played by rolling a number cube and graphing the result. I originally saw it done with numbers and adapted it for Spelling. I have them print the 5 sight words in the first 5 spaces and their word family rime in the sixth. When they roll a six they can print any word from the family above 6 on the graph. To make it more fun I let them print the words with felts.  Dice and felts together are a sure winner!

Colour Coder is similar to a word search, only they don't actually have to find the words on the grid.  They just colour in the letters used to spell the word.  I have them put an X on the letters because there are always those kids who will take a big chunk of time colouring in the spaces perfectly. 

Get these 2 word work activities free at my TpT store by clicking HERE.

#3.  MULTIPLE MEANING WORDS

I love this activity from The Primary Gal!  It's a great way to work with homophones.  The students pick a card with a word that has two meanings, then illustrate both meanings.  There's a FREEBIE SAMPLER HERE  or the FULL MEAL DEAL HERE!