Spelling Words CAN be fun!

Today is the day... the day I promised myself would never come. I...am..blogging.

I am an outspoken, opinionated mother of one (sometimes two if you count Big Man) and frazzled redhead. (I have many other titles, those are the ones that suit me today.)

Seeing as how Pinterest is the latest fad, I found that any good stay at home mom is almost required to have a blog in order to be taken seriously. Here is mine.

For my first post I decided it should focus on my son. He is Numero Uno in my life.

We are four weeks into 2nd grade and have found a HUGE issue with spelling words. I don't know about you, but my son doesn't want to read, spell, pronounce, use in a sentence and write them five times each. He finds it "annoying" as he would say.

I love reading and writing so I am very adamant that my little boy will be a good speller!

I've discovered (yes, I know I am probably not the first) a way to get him to work on spelling words that is not only fun for him but helps me multi-task.. Again, stay at home mom... I am a queen multitasker.

*Drum Roll Please*

SPONGE LETTERS.

Buy them... let them float in the tub, dump your child in, scrub them clean and then move on to the spelling list. My son has 15 words every week, and I have to say.... they are tougher than one would think a 2nd grader should be learning.

Not only is he spelling the word as he looks for the letters, then spelling it after it's on the tub wall.. but I allow him to make mistakes. He spells the word the way he thinks and I tell him to look at it... "Does that word look like it's spelled correctly to you? Yes?... Okay Point to each letter as you say the word outloud. Now does it look correct?" I find that in letting him find his own errors, he is less likely to get frustrated. Also, it has, in my experience helped him learn his words quite a bit easier.

 

Letters are easy to stick up and take down and no frustration with erasers and rewritting. Granted, we've made this a 3 night a week practice. The other nights I do have him write out his words because perfecting handwriting and letters at this age is important too. It's nice because by the time we get to our "writing nights" he pretty much has his spelling words 100% correct and it becomes a "no brainer" to write them out. If you try this strategy, please let me know how it works for you!

 

 

So as far as first blogs go, was that okay?  :)