I know everyone uses SpellingCity, but if you don’t have a paid account, and are thus not able to make use of all the puzzles and games, here are some free alternatives:
Spelling Training: Use a pre-defined list or one of your own to generate spelling practice, games, and tests.
KidsSpell:Type in your own spelling lists, and use them for the games on the site. Here's an example of a spelling list and available games. Click on the picture to try them out.
AAASpell.com Make a free account (you don’t have to, but it will let you save your lists), and your kids can practice their spelling words on their own with a variety of activities. For example, there’s “hear and spell” (computer reads the word; kid types it in); missing letter and scrambled letter exercises; and alphabetical order activities. You can also input separate vocabulary lists, with an exercise asking you to match the right word with the definition. Also, if you click into a vocabulary word, you're taken to the Wiktionary where you get the word's definition, can click to hear how it's pronounced, see synonyms and antonyms, other forms of the word, and the word used in a sentence. One annoying thing: when I entered a list of 15 vocabulary words, only two of them came back with computer-generated definitions. The rest, I had to re-input and manually type in the definitions. So, initially, it takes some time to set up, but once words are in, it can save time because students can study on their own. When finished, you can view a report that shows what exercises were done, and how many were right and wrong.
AAA also has its own K – 8 spelling and vocabulary lists, and alphabet exercises. In addition, there are links to geography and math exercises.
Mr. Nussbaum’s Spelling Central, which allows you to input words for four activities (alphabetical order, word search, word scramble, or missing letter) that can be done online or printed.
Discovery Education Puzzlemaker for inputting your own spelling words and making crosswords, cryptograms, and other types of puzzles.
Other Spelling Sites:
Harcourt Brace offers spelling word lists for grades 1 – 6. Each grade has 35 units. Play a game in which words have to be unscrambled.
Notorious Confusables: Extensive lists of word pairs that are often confused and misused, such as averse and adverse; Calvary and cavalry; eminent and imminent, etc. The highlighted word pairs are presented in sentences so you can learn proper usage. Mouse over the words, and you get the definitions. Site also includes online quizzes and writing and grammar guide.
Reading Rockets: Lists of word roots, prefixes and suffixes.
The following online resources are free, quality materials that can be used as ready-made courses, or as components to build your own.
Full Courses: These high school literature courses have both literature analysis, and grammar and composition components. Some sites, such as Georgia Virtual Learning, offer a variety of literature courses, such as Contemporary Lit, or Mythology. These courses are organized as units that can be clicked into separately so you can choose the material you want to use.
LitCharts: Presents background information on famous novels, including analysis of plot, characters, themes, symbols and quotes, and chapter summaries. Free to download in PDF or mobile apps.
When it comes to teaching literature, some homeschool families like to use curricula that comes complete with pre-determined reading lists, and comprehension and discussion questions. Other families like to choose their own books and corresponding literature guides for those book, many of which are available for free. But what if you want a literary analysis study with questions, activities and essay topics that can be used with any book?
Since all works of fiction share the same basic elements, you can help your kids recognize and evaluate these elements using more generic resources. Here are some that are free:
Glossary of Literary Terms: Provides descriptions of literary elements with examples from A Wrinkle in Time.
Literary Elements: This short video lesson describes how the basic literary elements affect one another in a story, using Hunger Games as an example.
Literary Elements Lessons: This 88-page document includes 18 lessons, each covering a specific literary element, like symbolism or personification. The lessons include short reading passages and questions. The document also includes answer keys.
Literary Visions: This series of half-hour videos from Annenberg Learner discusses the basic elements of fiction in stories, poems, and plays.
If you want to delve deeper, you can get into the various techniques writers use, such as symbolism, tone, diction and point of view. Here are several worksheets to help study these:
Questions to consider when analyzing setting, plot, character, point of view, symbolism, and theme. 6pp.
These worksheets provide suggestions for analyzing plot, point of view, tone, character, setting, theme, style, diction, syntax, imagery, symbolism, figurative language, irony, and quotes. 8 pp.
Blank chart to fill in with information on various literary elements. 4 pp.:
You can also study based on the type of work, for example, analyzing a play(4 pp.) or poetry(3 pp.). This generic novel study guide breaks a book into thirds, with suggested questions for the beginning, middle, and end of a book. Includes word study and activity suggestions. (4 pp.)
