Spelling and Vocabulary

I've been working on some fun ways to motivate my children to increase their vocabulary and improve their spelling.  I've come up with a smosh of ideas from pinterest ideas and this is what we've been doing the last few weeks.  It really works well for us.  I do this with my boys who are 11 and 12 as well as my girls who are 6 and 7.  It give me an opportunity to play games with each set of kids on a daily basis.  So here's our weekly layout

Monday - I give each set of children a list of 10 spelling/vocabulary words(more spelling for the girls and vocabulary for the boys).  Child #1 writes each word on ten different 3x5 cards.  Then Child #2 writes every word other that the word on the card in domino fashion.  You have to think of how the game dominos would work with words.  So each child ends up writing each word 10 times.

Tuesday - I play a game of word domino with each set of my children.  My girls love to see what shape the cards will create and the end of the game.  I have a rule that the child placing the card down must say both words on the card.  The boys say the definition.

Wednesday - I cut the dominos cards in half and create sets of four of each card so that they can be used for go fish, old maid, or spoons.

Thursday - We use the same cards from Wednesday to play either word match (like picture match).  So with my younger kids I just use the word cards.  With my older kids I have them write the definition on a separate care and we match the definition with the word).  We can also play word race where we spread out dissected dominos card on the lawn or around the house and I give each player a word and they have to find all the cards with that word on it.


Friday - We do a short quiz to make sure it all sticks


Their is really no limit to the things you could do with the cards as soon as they're made.  Be creative and most of all make it fun.