Spelling Centers

I try to make learning interesting for my middles, but sometimes I miss working with younger kiddos with fine motor skills and arts & crafts.  Yes, I can do arts & crafts with my kids...I just find it much harder to manage the shorter periods and an arts & crafts project.  I'm sure other middle school teachers can relate. 

So, I started making some activities for my friend who teaches in our lower school.  And OMG these turned out great!  She read the book, Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes, where the main character (a mouse named Chrysanthemum) loves her name until others make fun of her, and then had her students share their names using this spelling center.  Here are the results after just doing one part of my spelling center:

Students cut out the letters of their name and glued them to the page.  Each letter has a value, and students were able to create an addition number sentence based on the letters of their names.  She said students really enjoyed this activity, and also loved sharing out their total values. 

This is just an introductory activity to prepare students to work on a similar number sentence activity with their weekly spelling words, or a challenge activity for students to find the highest valued word within a given set of letter tiles.  The weekly spelling list activity allows students to evaluate the "values" of their spelling list with a data collection sheet. 

Click here to go to my spelling center activity! ($)

P.S.  Each of the activities in this spelling center activity have an alternate page for teachers who prefer not to use glue. 


I hope to make more activities like this because I had a TON of fun doing it. 

For a bunch of free spelling center ideas, visit this blog page.