Saturday, November 14, 2009

The Poor Man's Spinny Speller

Have you ever seen a spinny speller?  You can buy one here, or read how to make a wooden one here.

Sure, I may have all the supplies to make the wooden one, but I have no desire to use a drill and right now, my husband is too busy planning this to be able to help me build a tot tool.

So what did I do?

I came up with another version.






It took less than 5 minutes to make and Bear was happily telling me the letter sounds.  I blended them for her to make the word, then she repeated the word.  She doesn't quite "get" blending.  Any tips on how I should teach her this? 

6 comments:

  1. This is lovely! I liked the spinny speller when I saw it too. I didn't like the fact that it was all uppercase though, so we made our own from wooden beads and doweling with lowercase letters. Haven't got around to blogging about it yet. Good to see that there are others improvising too!

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  2. Neat Idea. I personally would start with the word 'at' re blending, then it is as simple as adding the consonant sound to the beginning. I've seen people drive cars over the letters and blending as they are driving that's a fun way to do it.

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  3. Great idea! I may have to make one of these myself!

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  4. Very good idea... when/if we ever get to the point that M wants to learn some actual words I'll definitely be doing this. I wonder if using binder rings would work too, or would it make it more complicated? Hm, may have to try it! Thanks for another great idea!

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  5. I love this idea! Thanks so much for sharing! And simple enough I think I can do it :)

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  6. As you know, Anna is blending just fine, but I cannot really tell how she learned it. We didn't do a lot of targeted hands-on spelling/blending activities, but we did read a lot of phonics box. Anna especially liked Usborne Early Readers like Fat Cat, Ted in Bed, etc. I suppose it helped her learn blending to a degree. But... Bear is a few months earlier, and I am pretty sure that she will get it soon with all the work that you do.

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