BANANAGRAMS
is a fantastic word game!
Similar to Scrabble, but played without a board, players make as many words as they can with their letter tiles.
Recently I used it to reinforce my 9-year old’s spelling lessons.
It is easy to build words in spelling families – just add letters, swap letters, make new words, find root words … the possibilities are endless!
Quick, fun, tactile, kinesthetic and visual – every learning sense is used to play and learn spelling.
We enjoy a variety of other spelling activities:
- write words on a white tile/ whiteboard
- Spelling City – fantastic free site with auditory and visual lessons, games and tests
- spell aloud while jumping on a mini trampoline or skipping rope
What fun activities do you use to teach spelling? Share with us in the comments.
Blessings,
Practical Pages 
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We use the tiles from Upwords like this.
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Believe or not, I found you via a pin on Pinterest! 😛 I am so glad I did…been poking around, reading bits ‘n pieces! You are so encouraging! Thank you! Can’t wait to visit again! 🙂
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Pingback: Bananagram Spelling | Homeschool HUB
can you share your spelling curriculum or program you use?
Thank you
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@Amy Rosa, we basically just use 2 methods:
1. Lists: High Frequency Words from Ruth Beechick’s books, which is lists of all words found and used regularly in reading & writing, and Schonell’s “Essential Spelling Lists” which covers word families from really easy groups to the most advanced words. Both these books are on my Book List. We work through a group of words on the lists each week, writing out, spelling out and using Spelling City.
2. Regular dictations and copywork: from our readers. Dictations have an amazing influence on children’s writing and spelling.
Each child finds the way they learn best too, which makes teaching spelling rather dynamic when homeschooling!
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Love Bananagrams. We’ve used it for reading lessons too having the children spell out their sentences to read when they were much younger. We actually caused a huge ruckus in Customs with this game because a Customs Guard saw it x-ray in our bags and thought we had a real banana in there! He tore our bags apart to fish it out and then crawled out of the area in embarrassment. hehe
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We love Bananagrams. Actually, I think we got a little burned out on it because we played it SO much but I think it’s about time to break it back out again! Hadn’t thought to do any of these sorts of activities, though. Thanks for sharing your ideas!
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One of my kids favorite ways to practice spelling is painting on the chalkboard. I give them water and a paintbrush and they paint their words as I call them out.
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@Paula, I love this non-messy idea!
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I am a huge fan of Bananagrams. Also if you haven’t heard of Dabble, it is a great tile game, too! 🙂 We also love our white/magnet board. I have letter tiles with magnets on the back (from All About Spelling) that the boys enjoy moving around on the board. And of course writing in colors on the dry erase is fun. 😉
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I love your art appreciation worksheets and I would love to use them in my homeschool classes. I just wanted to make sure that was ok. Thank you for all the hard work you have done on these. Chele
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@Chele, you’re most welcome to use the downloads! Blessings!
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