puzzle mania!

S-P-E-L-L-I-N-G.....not my son's favorite (or best, for that matter) school subject.  I think he takes after his dad.  Spelling always came easy to me.  I don't know how or why....it just did.  My husband....not so much.  My two favorites, from a grocery list that he wrote for me,  that I still give him a hard time about:  brokklie and collyflower.  And don't worry...he knows that he can't spell.  Apparently that's not required to be an engineer, or pilot for that matter!

Well, apparently our 6 year old son takes after his dad in the spelling arena.  For over a year now we have struggled with spelling.  A year ago it was like pulling teeth just to get him to sit down and write out ten words.  At seven in the morning I would tell him to start writing his spelling words...."But that will take until 5 o'clock tonight!!!"  Exaggeration...I don't know where he gets it. (ha!)  And then when we added 5 words a few weeks later to make it 15....he considered it cruel and unusual punishment.  Over time he has matured and realized that copying 20 spelling words every day is not the end of the world and his tests are improving.  However, retaining the ability to spell the same words in a free-hand writing assignment or dictation is a completely different story.  We're still working on that.

So, with spelling being the one subject that we have struggled with the most in school, I was so excited to find this website.  The puzzlemaker allows you to create your own word searches, cross word puzzles and lots of other puzzles in just seconds!  All you have to do is choose the type of puzzle, size of puzzle, words (and clues for crosswords) and then click "Create My Puzzle!"  And woila!  You have a puzzle!  For the past two weeks, I have created puzzles using his spelling words to give him additional practice with the words and having to spell them correctly to make the puzzle work.  I don't know yet if these will improve his spelling, but the puzzles do hold his attention and make him think about the words as well as their meanings or how to use them correctly in sentences.  So far, he is enjoying them (except that the first word search grid was a little too large for him to handle...I made it smaller this week) and I hope that not only will it improve his spelling, but also his vocabulary and using words appropriately when writing.

I couldn't figure out how to paste the crossword puzzle, but here is this week's word search...

T	Q	T	L	Y	P	E	E	S	N	T	W
V	O	A	G	R	D	L	L	R	M	I	A
Y	D	G	E	V	Z	D	T	A	U	N	S
Y	S	T	E	Z	S	D	A	A	U	Y	T
E	T	U	U	T	J	U	B	D	Y	G	M
Y	L	P	B	V	H	P	L	F	P	F	H
S	N	D	E	P	P	E	E	R	P	T	B
J	K	J	D	O	H	I	R	E	U	M	G
Y	Z	O	C	I	P	M	S	C	P	Y	N
Y	P	P	A	H	M	L	D	K	P	W	A
E	L	B	B	U	B	T	E	L	K	U	T
G	I	G	G	L	E	P	P	E	N	N	Y

BUBBLE
DADDY
HAPPY
MIDDLE
PRETTY
PUZZLE (how appropriate!)
TOGETHER
BUSY
FRECKLE
LADY
PENNY
PUDDLE
TABLE
COZY
GIGGLE
LAUGH
PEOPLE
PUPPY
TINY

Of course, my 5 year old, who likes school much more than her big brother, also wanted to do a puzzle, so I made this puzzle for her, using words from a book that she is working on reading....

R	H	D	B	Z	N	M	K
U	F	O	N	I	U	I	F
N	A	P	P	A	S	L	M
N	P	C	N	W	S	K	S
K	A	L	S	G	Y	W	C
L	B	P	E	U	D	P	A
J	U	M	P	H	I	J	T
C	K	U	A	O	G	U	N

CAT
HOP
PAN
SUN
DIG
JUMP
RUN
HELP
MILK
SAND

My only complaint with the puzzle maker is that it automatically puts some words diagonally and backwards, and you can't change that.  This can be challenging for younger kids, but so far, my kids have enjoyed them.  I can see lots of other possibilities with this tool, creating puzzles related to science, history, vocabulary, etc...

If anyone else has any suggestions, I would love to hear them!