Spell Down

Any interest in a Spell down?

Mary Elizabeth & I are looking to see if anyone is interested in doing a spell down.  If we had at least 2 kids from each age/grade, then we could do it.  (If not, if any one is interested in doing it with Mary Elizabeth at like 1:30 on Monday when we are there, that would be great.)

A spell down usually works this way:

1. Parents would provide the facilitator a list of words that their child in the competition have already completed-throw in some new ones or upcoming ones.  (This makes sure, since we are all using different curriculums, that ever child has a chance to succeed.)

2.  The kids would line up in 2 lines, youngest to oldest.  Each line needs to have the same age/grade as the one opposite them, that they are competing against.

                                            5                           5th grade

3. The facilitator would ask the student, “Jane, please spell “cat”.”  The student would reply, “Cat, C-A-T, cat.”  Facilitator says, “correct, your team gets one point.  If they are wrong, the other team-same age/grade gets that word.  If they get it correct, their team gets a point.  If they get it wrong, the 1st team 1st student gets another word. Whenever a point is earned, the new word goes to the next grade/age.  This is worked all through the line until all the students have had a turn.

4. The team with the highest score wins.

This could be done one time, once a month, or every week with new words.  Since we all use different curriculums, all the kids would learn from all the other kids words.  This reinforces their spelling in a fun supportive way, where the prize is a “good job”, being proud of accomplishing or improving your spelling.

If interested,   please e-mail me at clmcc2befree@yahoo.com with your child’s name/age/grade.  I could facilitate it at like 1:30 on Monday’s when we are already there.  However, I am not sure of the others who are there on Monday’s want to change their play time for this.  It would take as long as it takes to go through  the list the parents provide.  When we know how many are interested, we could have a better estimate of time. We could then decide on how many words the parents should provide each time.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Carol Petrusewicz