Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Spelling Words - too easy

spellingcity.com is great for my DS9 because he types to practice the words. He already knows the words the first day so to just do more spelling practice is not very meaningful. Learning to type is meaningful! Some one here had mentioned this site before - Thank you!

I need an idea for my DD6's Spelling words. She knows the words on the first day. What can she do to challenge herself with the spelling words? More handwriting practice would be meaningful but she is so tired of that. She has not learned all the finger postions yet for typing and doesn't want to type her spelling words. I told her if she knows her words the first day, Monday, she could take a break and review Thursday night before the test. She is such a good school girl and seemed resistant. I'm thinking her teacher told the class to study every night. I question if she is being challenged enough in school. Why not use her time by doing something else.

Last year my DS would request I give him extra words to challenge him and we would look up definitions in the dictionary. Maybe we will try that.

Maybe something with Spanish? with words like can, cat, man, ect.? Anybody know about learning spanish? I don't know much Spanish but she has expressed a interest. I'm not sure about this. Would this work?

Any other ideas?

Well, if she's interested in Spanish, you could have her learn the Spanish words for each of the spelling words and put those on the test as well! My DS7 answers his math questions with the normal answer and also the answer in Roman numerals. Of course, he has a teacher who is amused by it....

Edited to add: We apparently had a major meltdown today over a spelling test of some sort (Morrison McCall? anyone hear of it?), which he says was too easy. He ended up in the counselor's office in tears because he didn't want to be at school anymore. We have a meeting on the 30th to figure out what's going on and what to do about it.

We have a Leap Frog "My First Spelling Bee" game. It is designed for K-2 but perhaps you can take the game design and use it with more challenging words?

My DS has fun using Scrabble tiles to spell words. Unlike regular Scrabble, he has access to all of the tiles rather than a select few to create the words. He earns a score (using regular Scrabble scoring) which also incorporates a little math practice too! Woo hoo triple word score!

Also, we used to play the synonym/antanym game with spelling words when I was a kid. She could learn a synonym or antanym of her assigned words. To prompt the writing, she could create a short story using her new words. A word of the day calendar might be fun too! HTH