Cleveland Homeschooler

I was recently telling another mom about the spelling program we are using, and I thought I’d share a little about it here, in case anyone else is interested in hearing about it. It’s called Spelling Connections and it’s FREE!

I don’t remember exactly how I heard about it – I believe it was in the Well-Trained Mind forum, but I could be wrong about that. I’m just an occasional lurker there.  Towards the end of the summer, I was looking into curriculum options for my boys, specifically things that would save money and be a good fit for our mostly classical, eclectic style of home schooling.  Spelling Connections is one of those things I figured I’d try for the time being, but wasn’t sure if we’d stick with it or not. Well, it’s been several weeks, and we have stuck with it! Most importantly, there’s no more grumbling about spelling anymore. None. Zip. Nada.

So – how exactly do we use Spelling Connections?

I’m so glad you asked.

I like this program because it includes a combination of worksheets you can print out as well as online activities.  My boys do best with this kind of variety – they enjoy using the computer whenever possible, but will also tolerate a certain number of worksheets in any given week.

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We generally do spelling four days a week.  When I’m doing my lesson planning, I go to this Spelling Connections site and print out two things for each of my boys for their grade level; one is the list of spelling words and the other is called the Homework Master sheet.  On Monday, they simply copy their words on the first worksheet. I also count this as handwriting practice, since the sheets for the lower levels are lined. The lists are written in cursive beginning at grade 3, so my third grader actually does the second grade lists. He hasn’t done any cursive writing yet, and is still working on basic handwriting right now, so this works best for him. The second day we do spelling, usually Tuesday, the boys take turns doing the activities online.  On the main page of the site, there are two options for the games – choose the one on the left. It will look like you need to log in to use it, but you don’t. From there, you’ll see four games listed on the left-hand side. At the top of the page you can change the Unit and Grade Level as you do each game. We do two games one day, and two another day. On the third day of spelling work, usually Thursday for us, they do the Homework Master sheet. This is usually some kind of puzzle, so they actually don’t mind it.  Recently, my fifth grader’s sheet had to do with translating the words into Morse Code. He thought that was pretty fun and I appreciated the creative way of doing spelling practice.

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On day number four, usually Friday, the boys each do the last two games online, including a Spelling Bee that quizzes them on the words. I like that the other game is proofreading – this has been a good challenge for my boys, but much more fun to do on the computer.  They will have a paragraph to read (shorter for the first grader, longer for the fifth grader) that includes some of their spelling words. They then use the various proofreading marks to correct punctuation and spelling mistakes in the paragraph. I think this is a great way to reinforce not only correct spelling, but grammar lessons as well.

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Assuming they do well on all of that, they are done with that unit for the week and will move on to the next one the following week. Every five or six units there is a review unit that will have a word list but no games to go with it. I have them copy the words and do other activities throughout that week like writing sentences using the words, practice spelling them with magnets on the whiteboard, etc… You could even use this in combination with something like Spelling City where you can plug in the words and get more games and activities.

So far this spelling program is working well for us. My boys practically fight over who gets to do their spelling first on the computer! And because of the variety they don’t even grumble about the worksheets. I appreciate how easy it is for me on the planning side of things. Win, win.

If there’s anything else you’d like to know – ask away in the comments! If you have a spelling program that you love, please mention that, too.

~ Dori

As we end one month and begin another, I wanted to share an idea with you.

Carisa over at 1+1+1=1, has created these wonderful Calendar Connections that we’ve been using for a few months now and love!  I don’t remember how I first stumbled onto her post about these, but I do remember thinking that not only was it a great idea, it seemed so DO-able.  You see, most of the time when I read about everyone else’s great ideas I just end up feeling inadequate and insecure about my own projects – or lack thereof (tell me I’m not alone?).  But this one seemed like something I could actually do!

It’s possible that much of the allure was in the need to laminate things. I’ve written about my love of laminating before.

Carisa has a variety of Calendar Connection themes on her website and so far we’ve done three of them; Botany, Astronomy and the Arctic and Antarctic.  I purchased this pocket calendar, after much searching for the best price, and it’s been perfect. As a bonus, the cards that come with it (for the months, seasons, etc…) are in English and Spanish! My kids aren’t doing any formal language instruction right now, but have learned a little Spanish, so it’s been fun to use the calendar cards to learn new words.

I had wanted a large, visual way to help my younger boys learn the months, days of the week, etc… and this has been just what we needed.  It also comes with cards for the different holidays or birthdays, which helps us all to see what special things are happening during the month.

So far, I’ve let my boys choose which theme they wanted to do for the month, but this month I chose for them, since Carisa has a Thanksgiving theme.  At the end of the month I just go to her site, print out the cards for the theme we want to do the next month, laminate them, cut them out and enlist a little helper in putting them in the right pockets – easy!

Each day, usually at dinnertime, we pull out that day’s card and read it. This usually leads to some discussion or commentary by the boys. I also gather whatever books we have lying around the house or check out new ones from the library that fit our theme and keep them in our book basket for the boys to peruse. Of course whenever we can tie in our other school work with the theme (i.e. doing our science chapter on botany and our Magic School Bus kit about the solar system) we do that, too.

We’ve really enjoyed adding this to our day – my boys look forward to it and remind me to read the new card each day! It’s been a very simple way to learn new facts about topics the boys are interested in and I’m looking forward to making our way through all of the themes. You can find all of the Calendar Connections here.

Happy Halloween!

~ Dori