Engaging Homophone Classroom Activites

Can I just say that I LOVE when we cover homophones! I've done some cute projects over the years, but this week has included some new things. After playing some math Scoot games, I knew I had to create one for our spelling list. We(teacher included) love Scoot. Getting up and moving around while having a focus is a wonderful combination. Scoot is new to me. Where the heck have I been?

We used Reading Street-Common Core edition. Both the old and new versions have a week where the vocabulary skill and the spelling list match: Homophones. So, I created a scoot game using our Spelling list plus a few more to have enough cards for the game. Version 1 has word clues like (to, two, too) where the kids pick the correct word used in context. I thought this would be a good formative assessment to see where we are at the beginning. I think we will use the open-ended version Thursday to see how we have progressed. That should give them a pretty good idea about where to focus before our test. Who know.....if they do well, I'll count it as the test as a surprise!

Here are some of the kids as they wander around the room with their task at hand.

Next, we gathered on the carpet to check them. It was super easy to just display the PDF file on my Promethian board. It was great to hear them say, "Yes!" To their correct answers.

I don't usually ASSIGN homework on Spelling City. I like for my kids to use their little hands and write, despite the computers they have been issued. This time, though, I did. They had to match the correct word in the sentences and WRITE the sentences that were given. They always take a practice test on Thursday (spelling City optional), but I did want them to this time....but WRITE the words after the computer calls out the words.

One day a week, our gifted students are pulled out. We are not permitted to teach new material, so I try to have a creative yet purposeful activity for them to enrich their learning. I usually have my kids create sentences with their spelling words, but they have to be in the same sentence. Like, I hurt my left hand, so I had to write with my right hand. takes some creativity, but they usually like that a lot. However, I was talking with our new gifted teacher and she shared an activity she likes to do: Drive My Teacher Crazy. You create sentences using the WRONG homophone and illustrate it. I knew right away I needed to do that. There were so many giggles when we checked our Scoot answers that I knew they saw the humor in using the wrong one. Unlike us grownups that are perturbed when people use your instead of you're!

We created a list of homophone pairs we knew ( not the spelling words) and Boy! Did we fill the board. We folded our large paper into fourths( fractions!) so that they could create their own sentences to drive me crazy! There is no way I could share all of their super ideas, but I've included a few favorites.

Well, I need to fill my wish list for the big TPT SALE! Have to use some self-control! I have all EIGHT(small, I know, but I am starting) of my items on sale. Maybe you will see something you can use!