Game Show Spelling

(from Jan 11, 2008)
We do a sequential type of spelling with the older boys. For some reason it just confuses Ki.Anyway, we did something a little different yesterday and they seemed to like it.

I always start them on Monday with a small list is words and we build on them throughout the week and by Thursday they have about 20 words.Normally they write them all from memory (as opposed to conventional spelling where the teacher calls out one word at a time and they write it). It works well. They actually improved when we switched to that way.BUT- Here is what we did this time:Monday the base words were
people
popular
populate
vacate
locate
solve
resolute

they had to write each word 3 times and think of 3 alternate forms to write down. They wrote: vacated, solving, location, locating,solves.

Tuesday I went over the words and added a few. They wrote 10 sentences and used 15 words (as many alternate forms as they could think of to use)I have them think of the other word forms on their own and they figure out how to spell them and we go over them.

Wed- I listed all the forms they had come up with and corrected any spelling. (they got almost everything correct) Then I added a few more forms. And I had them look up definitions to a few words and write the whole list correctly in their notebooks.I think our list by then was:
people
popular, unpopular, popularity
populate (s) (d), populating, population, populations, repopulate, repopulating, repopulated
vacate (s) (d), vacation (s), vacationing, vacationed
locate (s) (d), location (s), locating, relocated, relocating, local,
solve (s) (d), solving, solution, resolve (s)(d), resolvin
resolute(d), resolution (s)

Thursday-we spelled words using sign language. I do a few with them and then they quiz each other while I do sign language withKi's words.That was all pretty much the same as always.

Friday's test was different.Gavin slept in, so I started with Connor. I said the word an he had to finger-spell (sign language) to me. When I got to 15 I told him that he had 13 out of 15 and asked if he wanted to keep that score or do more words to try to better his percentage. but if he missed them he'd lower his percentage.
It was kind of a Game Show Flavor... "Do you want to take the money you already won or try to move up and earn more at the risk of lowering it"

He liked that idea. I'd ask him at each word if he wanted to stop now with what he had or go for one more. He stopped at 19 and didn;t miss anymore, so we figured out what his percentage would have been if he had stopped and how much better his percentage was now. Then we worked on a bonus word. I helped him figure out how to use the words in his list to help him spell 'revolutionary'.

I did the same with Gavin, he thought out the risk of doing more words more than Connor did. He figured put 'revolutionary' on his own so he got more bonus points.

Ki finger-spelled his words to me and asked for a bonus word.Just thought I'd share our 'game show risking more points' method. My boys love to watch those shows, where the contested is asked is he wants to walk with the money or risk losing it to make more.

**Kimberly