Lesson Recipe: When do we double letters? – Spelling Bee –ED

Preparation time – 5 minutes

Cooking time – 30-40 minutes

Design Ingredients Mise en Place

– Print outs of the Spelling Bee honeycomb with letters inside (taped at group’s whiteboards or ready to hand to groups)

– Whiteboards or paper for groups to write words on

– White board markers or pencils

– A place to write their found words

Preheat the classroom

– Ask/confirm: Who has played the game Spelling Bee before? 

– Explain: When we play we are trying to find all the words hidden in the honeycomb. We can repeat and reuse letters, the only rules are that the word is real and that the middle letter is used in every word you find. 

– Ask: What’s a word you see? 

“Let’s get into groups and find as many words as possible!” 

Stir in hints and persistence

“I have found three animal names, have you found any”?

“When I play a game like Scrabble, I like to start with the letters ED to go at the end of my word, and then I see what letters and words I can add to ED”. 

• Let all groups know about finding words with ED after a few minutes of working. It will be important that students have found several ____ed words. 

Mix in deep thinking

Once all groups have found at least a ten words bring them together as a big group. Ideally, they come together before they have lost their steam/energy and momentum, when they are still excitedly looking for words. 

Congratulate them on finding so many words, then have students share some of the words they found that end in ED (or that they see on other group’s whiteboards). When you write these words down, separate them into two lists. One set of words are CVC words(like dropped) will have doubled the last letter (Drop became Dropped), the other set are not CVC words (with words like roped) did not double the last letter. 

After adding at least 5 words to each of the two lists, ask the class to turn and discuss with their elbow partners what they seein the two lists, what they notice, and what they wonder. 

Have students share their ideas. Illicit from students the rule of CVC words doubling their final consonant. 

Quick Broil Finishing

Send groups back to look at their words, let them know that there is also and E-R that could act as a suffix like E-D did. 

– Notice if groups are applying the rule for doubling consonants. 

Lesson pairs well with

Mild questions

– What happens if we add E-D as a suffix to [pet], [bet], [cup], [lift],

Medium questions

– What happens if we add E-D as a suffix to [sail], [tread], [tent], [water]

– How do you pronounce [hoped], [hopped]

Spicy questions

– Explain why some words double their last letter when ‘ED’ is added.

– Give an example of a word where ‘ED’ is added, but the last letter isn’t doubled.