Introductory Activity :

Pose a question to your students: *How do you study your spelling words for your weekly spelling test? Encourage students to share their individual strategies. Discuss the importance of learning styles and why it's important for students to know their learning styles. Offer this additional strategy for your students to try out.

Body :

Once students have identified that all words contain vowels and consonants, have students begin looking for patterns in words. Display the weeks' spelling words. Have the spelling words already written in red and blue letters, using the red for vowels and the blue for consonants. Ask the students to find words from the list that contain the same pattern. Have students write the words on their own paper, using red and blue ink pens. Students should write vowels in red and consonants in blue. Once this activity is completed, hand out a Zip-loc bag of red and blue snap cubes. I put about seven red cubes and seven blue cubes in a Zip-lock along with the red and blue ink pens. I store this in a convenient place so that students can access them easily. Allow students time to "build" the spelling words using the cubes as shown on their paper. It's ideal if several students can work together cooperatively so that students can begin to see that some words contain the exact same pattern.

Conclusion Activity :

Once the students have had practice in writing and "building" the spelling words, introduce some movement to their routine of spelling the words. I teach my students to stand with their legs about hip-width apart. Students begin with their hands on their hips. Instruct the students to clap over their head for vowels, and below their hips for consonants. After practicing a bit, students catch on quickly and can chant the letters of the word while clapping appropriately. To add technology to this lesson, I prepare a powerpoint where the spelling word zooms in - one letter at a time - vowels are red and consonants are blue. As the letters appear on the screen, (we have tv-ators) students join in with the chanting and clapping activity. They like to end the word with "cha-cha-cha" and a twisting movement. I also like to add a sentence that zooms in with the spelling word in context. The entire class reads the sentence together. Example: bear would be: b(blue) e(red) a(red) r(blue) A bear came darting out of the woods!

Evaluation Activity :

Just before the weekly spelling test was given, I like to show the powerpoint one additional time - just for review. It only takes about 3 minutes!