Fun Spelling Activities

Here are two super-fun spelling activities for elementary grade students. Your kids can play them inside or outside.  What could be better?

Give your students quick -thinking mental spelling practice with the first fun game called, "Hands Up!"  Then check out our indoor/outdoor spelling version of Hopscotch!

Hands Up!

Here's a peek at the printable page. The full text also appears below. 

Directions:
1. First, divide your students into two teams.
 
2. Call out the first 3 letters of a word. When a student knows how to complete a word that begins with those 3 letters, he raises his hand.

3. Call on the first student you see raising his hand. Ask him to finish spelling one word. If his answer is correct, then also call on any other students on his team who have their hands raised, until there are no more raised hands or until someone gives an incorrect answer.

4. Write the correct answers on the board as they are spelled.  Give the team one point for each correctly completed word.

5. If the first student's answer is not correct, call on a student from the opposite team and proceed as described above.

6. At the end of the game period, the team with the most points is the winning team.

Example:  The teacher calls out B-R-I.
First student: N - G   (bring)
Second student (same team): M  (brim)
Third student: C - K  (brick)
Fourth student: G -H - T (bright)
Fifth student: L - K  (brilk) - incorrect
The team scores 4 points.

Hop To It!

Here's another one of our favorite fun spelling activities. Here's a peek at the printable version. The full text appears below.

Directions:

1. Draw several hopscotch boards on your playground. Add a letter to each square.

2. Divide students into groups of 4-6. Ask each group to stand by a different hopscotch board.

3. The first person in each group may hop on any letters in any order to spell a word. The other students follow in turn. Each player must spell a new word.

4. Ask groups to rotate and play on each of the hopscotch boards.

Example:   In the diagram above, students could spell: son stop, top ton, pay, lay, not, pot and more.

They may also spell these words if they can hop over letters without touching them: tops, snap, play and others.

5. Optional: If desired, each group can appoint one person to keep track of the total number of words scored by his/her group. At the end of the class time, compare scores with other groups. The group with the highest number of points is the winning group.

More Fun Spelling Activities

Partner Practice Assign pairs of students to review a past weekly spelling unit. Ask them to choose ten (or other appropriate number) of the most difficult words from that week’s list. Next, ask them to write a short story using those ten words. When the stories are finished, ask partners to share the stories with their classmates. Then quiz the other students on the ten words they've chosen.

Here are just a few examples of more fun spelling activities on our site:

Double Letter Animal Word Search:  Supply the missing pair of letters, then find each of the 40 animal names in the word search puzzle. Fun spelling practice for any age!

Check out our AnyWord Book Series! Three eBooks of fun worksheets, games and partner activities that you can use with any spelling words! Choose a word play puzzler, a story starter or a fun partner game. Plug in the spelling words of your choice, and watch the learning begin! When you find a format that students really like, use it again with a whole new set of spelling words. 

Printable spelling reproducibles - Mini word search puzzles: The printable spelling worksheets on this page will provide your students fun practice in spotting and spelling troublesome words, said, friend, eight, and because. What better format to use than a word search puzzle? 

Free spelling activities for two players - "Shady Spelling"  Printable game boards for two players. In this game, I've created game boards at three different levels. The words come from these graded spelling lists.

Opposites Unscramble 16 words, then match each on up to an opposite that's also in the list. Fun two-part activity for extra vocab practice!

Pull-Apart Synonyms - Extremely challenging free word scramble game! Can you pull apart these letters, without rearranging them, to spell a pair of synonyms? Is this as easy as it sounds???

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Ann Richmond Fisher is a longtime published educational writer, a former classroom teacher and a former homeschool teacher. Ann's spelling bee resources, graded spelling word lists, spelling games, worksheets, and other language arts resources have become respected around the globe since she launched Spelling-Words-Well in 2010.

Ann is also the creator of www.word-game-world.com.

Visit my YouTube Channel for fun spelling practice videos!

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AnyWord Spelling Practice Series Worksheets, Games and Prompts that work with almost ANY spelling words!

Fun Spelling Worksheets for Grades 1 and 2    50 All-new reproducible pages for early learners!

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!