My son has been asking how to spell words for a while, he knows his letter sounds and while I am not planning on formally teaching him to read yet I do want to keep him interested and learning , as well as offering some challenge . This activity evolved as we played and is easy to adapt to various abilities. You could even skip spelling as use it as a match game for younger children!
- Gather your materials. You will need a cardboard puzzle ours was from trick or treating , and markers in various colors. If you are doing this with school age or more proficient readers you can use one color, but for beginners or children needing less challenge the single color per word will help the process.
- Start by putting the puzzle together.
- Next divide it into smaller pieces for the words.
- Using one color per word , write the word one letter per piece on the back of the puzzle. Out of habit Icapitalized two of the words. When we put those together we talked about Uppercase letters and when we use them.
- Now to play! The way we did it for my son was to pick out all the letters in one color and place them on the tray.
- Next we tried to decide which letter came first. This frustrated my son, it was too much of a challenge. So I found the first letter and he was golden from there.
- Once the pieces are all together he sounded it out without prompting .
- This is when he figured it out!
maria says
What a clever idea, we have a lot of old jigsaw puzzles we could use for spelling words. Thanks:)
welcome to our wonderland says
LOVE this idea off to see if I can find an old puzzle!!! 🙂
I can’t believe your little one is in the exersaucer all ready wow where does the time go! 🙂
Jenae @ I Can Teach My Child says
What a great idea! This would have perfect for a first grade classroom!
Momof1 says
What a great idea !! My son is almost of your son’s age so these ideas helps a lot !!
I just nominated you in the Best Crafts, Plans and Projets category in the Best Homeschool Blog Awards !!
Good Luck !!
Momof1 says
Oops..sorry not nominated but I voted for you 🙂
Colleen says
What a great idea! I’m off to create some puzzles right now for my little ones. Thanks so much for all the wonderful ideas you share 🙂
admin says
I know she will be doing some crafts in no time ! I was going to move her out of the picture but figured I’d show how I get the activities done 😉 I didn’t even know I was nominated , thank you!!
Charlee Pensak says
thank you for this post! My son is in Kinder and is getting bored because its all review for him and he is asking to spell words so this is a great fun way to do it!
Pancakes For Recess says
Super idea. A great use for old puzzles!
Jane says
Great idea! Love it.
Caz says
What an amazing idea, and it combines two things my kids love – puzzles and letters. Thankyou for sharing this!
Cathy says
This is a great suggestion! Thank you!!!
Maria Rosas says
I like it