Spelling

18 November 2016

Choose some words from previous spelling lists that you found hard and practise them using the strategies at the front of your homework book.

18 November 2016

We’re still focussing on irregular verbs this week so here’s another list. However, there are lots more. Try to spot some when you’re reading.

Children may be tested on the infinitive form of the verb (to lose) or the simple past tense version of the word (lost). The children have already spent some time looking at these words so they aren’t unfamiliar. However, as we’ve moved back to testing every week, we’ve dropped the number of spellings down to eight.

If you’ve any questions about this list or spelling generally, please ask.

to lose           lost

to fall             fell

to hide           hid

to drive          drove

to fight           fought

to win            won

to pay            paid

to find           found

18 November 2016

This week, I will not be giving your child a spelling list. Instead, during our spelling test on Friday 25 November, I will read out ten sentences that contain at least one apostrophe. Your child will need to figure out which words need an apostrophe and use it correctly. For example…

• Some of my book’s pages were torn. (Here, an apostrophe is needed because the book ‘owns’ the pages.)
• I believe they are Mr Jones’ golf clubs. (An apostrophe is needed to show Mr Jones owns the clubs, and in this case it comes after the s because Mr Jones has an s at the end of his name.)
• I can’t believe you lost your book. (There’s a missing letter here, because can not has been contracted.)

To prepare for the test, your child should practise using apostrophes for possession and contraction/omission.

18 November 2016

Our spelling list leads on from our spelling activity from last week. These are the homophones that Year 6 need to learn – remember it’s not the spellings that are tricky but knowing when to use them so you need to practise using them in sentences correctly.

11 November 2016

The spellings for this week have the prefix re- or mis-. Pay special attention to misspell. This is often spelt incorrectly as an s is accidentally omitted.

• react
  refill
  rebuild
  retake
  recycle
• misplace
  misunderstand
  misspell
  misbehave
  mislead

11 November 2016

In phonics next week, we’re learning about irregular past tense verbs. Usually when we change a verb to the past tense, we just need to add ‘ed’. Irregular verbs are annoyingly irregular and don’t follow the rule!

Don’t stop at this list. Find some other irregular verbs. There are loads of them!

11 November 2016

This week’s spelling activity is all about homonyms.

Read the chapter from Ann M. Martin’s ‘How to look for a lost dog’ which is all about homonyms. Rose (the main character) loves homonyms which include homophones and homographs.

• Homophones are words which sound (hence, ‘phone’) the same but are spelt differently: their, there, they’re.
• Homographs are words that are spelt the same (hence, ‘graph’, as in autograph) but sound different: to bow, the bow and arrow.

Rose creates lists of homonyms because she really likes them. How many groups of homonyms can you (ewe) create and can you (yew) then use them correctly in (inn) sentences. I wonder whether you can write a sentence with the whole (hole) group of homonyms in it?

Challenge – Rose can only think of one group of four homonyms. Can you think what that is? (Check Rose’s rules for homonyms in the chapter.)

04 November 2016

Here are the spellings for this week. They will be tested on Friday 11 November.

04 November 2016

04 November 2016

For this week’s spellings, we recap learning from earlier years as we focus on plurals – more than one of a noun. Children should practise spelling these words in preparation for a test on Friday 11 November.

Children will be tested on 10 of these words (but should know them all).

I have given the singular version. Children should learn the plural version. For example:

• one bus / two buses
• one baby / two babies

Please remember what we discussed at parents’ evening: “It is much more important that children learn the rules than simply the correct spellings.”