5th Grade Spelling Activities

Your 5th grade spelling activities should include:

• Standard spelling word practice 
• Practice with words from the students' science, social studies and other content areas
• Spelling and vocabulary enrichment

By fifth grade, your students' interests and abilities are varying more and more from student to student. By allowing  students to explore new information in their areas of interest, it will be easier to keep your students engaged in learning. See our list of typical 5th grade spelling words here.

By this age, no doubt you'll be asking students to write about their new areas of interest. And so, they need to learn to spell the words they're using.

5th Grade Spelling Practice Activities

Here are two different activities that focus on separate skills: spelling and alphabetization. Your kids/students will enjoy these when you present them as a fun alternative to traditional workbook pages!

Missing Letters

Here's a super-simple idea that's great for board work or a worksheet. Make a list of spelling words like this:

__ a v __ __ i t __   (favorite)
d __ t __  r __  __ n e  (determine)
c __ __ t i __ __ n t   (continent)

Ask students to fill in the blanks to complete the spelling/vocabulary words. For extra practice, ask them to write each complete word again and also use it in a sentence.

Students can write or type word lists like this for each other. This not only saves you a lot of work, it also gives students extra practice as they both make and solve these spelling words.

In Between

Dictionary skills go hand in hand with spelling skills. Here's another simple idea that challenges vocabulary and spelling skills.

Write two guide words on the board. You can think of your own guide words or get them from a dictionary. Here are two examples. 

 1) canyon - cat                 2) strange - strike

Ask students to write one set of guide words on their papers.
Give students 2 minutes to write as many words as possible that come between the two guide words alphabetically. When time is up, have students exchange papers to check each other's  accuracy. Questionable spellings should be checked in a dictionary.

Words that might be added:
1) cap, capsize, carpet, castle, carriage, cascade, capital
2) stray, strap, strength, street, stream, streak, stress, strict

Variation

Or make the activity into a classroom game. Arrange students into two teams. Write a  different set of guide words on the board for each team.  Set a time period of 5 or 10 minutes.

Have 1 player from each team come to the board and write 1 word under the team's guide words. As soon as the player returns to his seat, the next player writes another word, and so on. At the end of the time period, the team with the most correct words wins the round.

More Spelling Resources

Try some of our spelling worksheets and spelling word games for more fun practice. Here are just a few from our larger collections:

Fill-in crosswords: These unique puzzles use important words from our fourth grade spelling word list. Lots of puzzling fun!

Spelling word puzzlers: Students chose the correctly spelled words to complete an interesting story or eliminate extra letters to solve a word puzzle. Based on our sixth grade spelling word list.

For more fun spelling practice, try our AnyWord Spelling Practice Series. In these three eBooks, you'll  find word play worksheets, writing prompts and partner games and activities that work with almost any list of spelling words!

Fifty-Fifty - Fun word game for kids. Older students earn points as they engage in word play and spelling fun.

Spelling Bee Games - Try one of our new Silent Spelling Bee variations. A fun--and quiet--twist on  a classic game!

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Think-A-Spell! A fun collection of brain teasers and spelling challenges. Best for ages 10 to adult. 

AnyWord Spelling Practice Series   Fun Worksheets, games & prompts that work with almost ANY spelling words!

Gigantic Spelling Bee Word Lists with definitions, sentences and languages

Spelling Bee Toolboxes for Grades 3/5 and 6/8   All the resources you need for a successful bee! 

Monumental Spelling Bee Word Lists for grades 3/4, 5/6 and 7/8 with definitions, sentences and languages

Mammoth Spelling Bee Word Lists  for grades 3/4, 5/6 and 7/8  with sentences, definitions, and languages

Young Spellers Spelling Bee Word List for Grades 1 & 2 only 

100 Difficult Spelling Bee Words with Definitions, Sentences and Pronunciations, Volumes 1 and 2

600 Spelling Bee Words & Sentences for Gr 3/5 & 6/8 Extra words & sentences at two levels

101 Word Play Puzzlers   Discover the FUN of letters & words as you solve each unique puzzle. Great vocabulary & spelling practice!