Third Grade Lesson Plans for Spelling

These simple third grade lesson plans are ones that you can use many times throughout the school year.  Just use a new set of spelling words each time. See our list of third grade spelling words.

Our AnyWord worksheets, partner games and writing prompts will also provide you with lots of material for your lessons!

1. Story Puzzles

1. Using a chalkboard or whiteboard, write a short story together with your child or as a class. (A story from 5 sentences up to 3 paragraphs in length will work well.) Use as many spelling words as possible.

2. Read the story aloud together 2 or 3 times. 

3. Erase the spelling words in the story.

4. Call on one student to read the story aloud, remembering to add add in the words that were erased.

5. Ask several students to come to the board to fill in the missing words.

6. Repeat the process with a new story. This time, however, ask each student to write the entire story, with his own paper and pencil, filling in all the missing words.  

2. Is It Right? - A Listening Lesson

Here's another one of our third grade lesson plans. This is a very simple format that you may wish to use frequently with your elementary students. Kids must listen carefully and know the correct spellings of words.

Here's how to conduct the simple lesson: 

Choose a list of 10 spelling words, either current or past.  Then speak to your child or students as follows:

"Write your name at the top of your paper. Number your paper from 1 to 10.  In this lesson, I will say a word, spell it and say it again. You need to listen carefully to hear if I spell the word correctly. "

"If I spell the word correctly, put a Y for yes by the number. If I do not spell the word correctly, put an N for no. "

Examples:

Here are sample words you could use for your third grade lesson plans:

1. about - ABOUT - about (Y)
2. across - ACCROSS - across (N) 
3. afraid - AFRAID - afraid (Y)
4. birthday - BRITHDAY - birthday (N)
5. bread - BREAD - bread (Y)
6. dinner - DINNER - dinner (Y)
7. doctor - DOCTER - doctor (N)
8. early - ERLY - early (N)
9. everyone - EVERYONE - everyone (Y)
10. forgot - FERGOT - forgot (N)

When you're finished, ask everyone to correct their own papers as you go over the correct answers. If there are disagreements, be sure to repeat what you said so that students will LISTEN carefully again to the spelling. 

More Ideas for Third Grade Lesson Plans

3rd Grade Activities - 25 spelling dictation sentences and full instructions. Use a few of these each week to provide students with extra practice in writing, spelling and using spelling words in context. 

These writing prompts for 3rd grade ask:  If you joined the circus, what act would you like to do? Do you like to wear matched socks? Why or why not? Why were you not afraid of the giant who walked into your classroom? Set contains 12 prompts in all. 

How to teach spelling - Even if you've been teaching for years, you might find it helpful to brush up on these fundamentals.

Spelling games online - Let your third graders correct our mistakes. 25 sentences in all, featuring many words from our 2nd and 3rd grade spelling word lists. A fun way to practice and review!

Double the Fun - To double or not to double the final consonant when adding a suffix? Another great game for 3rd grade spelling fun! 

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