While many of the features and games are available for free, there is also a Premium Membership for $29.99 that gives you access to a few extra games, flash cards, and individual student reports to help you track each student. For this review, we were given a Premium Membership.
How We Used It:
Josie recently finished up her first spelling curriculum, so she doesn't have spelling list every week right now. Instead, I picked a list of about ten words that she constantly misspells and had her play the games using those words.
We don't use computers very much during school. I know that a lot of homeschools do, but in my experience, it ends up getting pushed to the side and often skipped. We just do better with things in our workboxes. That being said, we did use this program a few times a week. I plugged in the words I wanted her to work on and let her play the games while I made dinner or worked on something else at the table.
Plugging in the word lists was super easy. You just add the words and name your list. That's it! I loved how simple that was. From there, I sat her down and clicked the "Teach Me" button. The program then went through a simple drill of how to spell the word or the meaning of the word (depending which button I pushed). After she listened to that one time, I let her pick a couple games to play to practice the words.
There are a lot of free games that kids can play to practice, but the premium membership gets them a few extras. Letter Fall was Josie's favorite. In this game, letters fall from the top of the screen and Josie had to catch the correct letters in the correct order to spell each word. There was also a word find and a Speedy Speller game that she had access to. Since she doesn't have a lot of experience on my laptop, she didn't really love the other games.
My Opinion:
While the games in the membership section were neat, this isn't a product that we would use on a regular basis. The games are fun and Josie really enjoyed them, but we just aren't a computer heavy school at this point. I prefer to teach spelling with normal, old drill.
I do think that the games are beneficial and if you're student learns well from games, they may really enjoy them. It is very user friendly and would be great for any spelling list if extra practice is needed. I recommend reading some of the other Crew reviews if you are on the fence about getting a membership to this program.
Product Details:
www.SpellingCity.com
One Year Membership: $29.99/year
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