This fun activity is an excellent way to revise or practice the spelling of family vocabulary without drilling.

Level/Age group:

This spelling game can be played with older pre-schoolers or lower primary school ESL students

Aim of the game:

To practice or revise spelling of family vocabulary

What you need:

Blackboard and chalk
or wordcards with family members on them and blutack to stick them on the wall/blackboard.

You will find family wordcards ready to print below.

How to play:

Arrange the students in pairs in a semi-circle facing the board or the display where you put the words previously. The number of words on the display depends on how advanced your group of children is. Don't give them too many spelling at the beginning as they might lose interest.

Take a place in the circle as well.

You start the game by checking if students can read, understand and spell the words they can see on the board. Do this as a whole group activity.

Then ask one of your students to come and sit in front of you. Choose one word from the board. Start writing one of the family members name on his/her back. The pupil has to guess what you have written on his/her back by saying or pointing to the correct word.
If the student fails to say the correct word try again until the guess is right.

After the correct word was said swap and the start the game again. Both students have more turns. This way everybody will have an opportunity to write and also to guess and say the words. Excellent and fun practice before a not so loved spelling test.