Let me start out by saying that I haven’t received anything for writing this post (although, if you’re out there, powers-that-be-at-SpellingCity, I’m totally okay if you hook me up with a subscription to the paid portion of the site!) I’m just sharing this with you because, WOW, what a difference finding this site has made.
So BigG did a Kindergarten/First Grade combo last year. It was a hodge-podge of curricula and resources. I have a feeling every homeschool mom has been there at least once. You just mash stuff together to get you through the year.
If you haven’t been there then you either haven’t been homeschooling long or you’re lying. 🙂 For us, our hodge-podge year was also our first one. It was a great year and we had fun with the material and we made it through. But I’m thankful this year for Sonlight where so much is combined and already laid out for us.
But back to my point. I bought a book called Spelling Connections for spelling. It started with writing the alphabet (which we skipped because Bug had been doing that for years). I have no idea if the book was K or 1st. It didn’t say. Starting with the alphabet led me to believe it’s K. But by the end of the book he had spelling words like doing, saying and being. Are words really that advanced by the end of K? He did great with it. So this year with Sonlight’s 2nd grade Language Arts I decided to just jump right in with their spelling words. I had considered All About Spelling but I didn’t want to spend money on another program and have another set of books. So I decided to just give it a try and see where it took us.
Spelling wasn’t BigG’s favorite thing last year. But the simple sheets each day practicing the spelling words were bearable. We got through it. He never missed more than one on his 8 word tests and his final grade was a 96.
Well, while I like Sonlight’s spelling words and method of teaching spelling rules, the day-to-day activities with the words were lacking. I tried to pick up the slack with other activities but that wasn’t working. And just making him write his words every day? Ummm…no. And test days were awful because he knows the words, he just doesn’t know that he knows the words. And taking a test was like pulling teeth.
That’s when I turned to Spelling City! I plug our spelling words in each week and he spends 15-20 minutes a day playing games with the spelling words. He enjoys the games and he gets a sense of pride and accomplishment when he gets them right. Test day rolls around and I start calling out words and he’s EXCITED because he knows that word! (Seriously, I can say, “teacher” and he says, “YES! I know that word! I can spell that word!”) And he’s making connections with other words with how they are spelled by thinking of one of his spelling words first.
And you know what else I like about it? It’s 20 minutes of my day that I don’t have to be right beside him. I can go start lunch, or sort a load of laundry or something for 20 minutes while he works on his spelling words. That’s so great for this age when you’re already having to be so hands on with everything else to catch a small break!
Check out SpellingCity! I’d love to hear what you think about it!
Do you have any other spelling ideas?