Engage the entire family in this fun word-building activity. Your child's successes will encourage him to play on his own and challenge himself.

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Nicola Salvatico, our teacher consultant, notes: “This fun interactive or independent game challenges your child to build as many words as he can. It allows your child to recognize word patterns, gain strategies and experience successes as well as observing great spelling strategies modeled by family members!”

Here's How To Do It

What You’ll Need Magnetic, paper or tile letters A white board, paper or laminated paper Markers Timer (optional)

Pick a word family (at, ab, ag, an, am, ap, ar, ed, en, et, id, ig, in, ip, it, ob, og, op, ot, ub, ug, un, ut, um). Each person has his own paper, marker and individual letters (consonants). Set the timer for one minute (optional). Each player then builds as many words as he can using the letters (consonants) and the word family (for example: c + at = cat) and writes the list of words on his paper. When the timer goes off, each player then reads all the words he has built. Make sure they are real words and not nonsense words. To extend this activity, write sentences using the words that were built!

Nicola Salvatico was the Pennsylvania Teacher of the Year in 2005.

January 2006