Write the Weather Word

Six weather symbols run down this 1st grade page, one to a row, each followed by a line of dashed letter boxes. A word bank across the top holds storm, cloud, rain, sun, rainbow and snow. The child finds the word that belongs to the symbol and writes it one letter to a box. The rows ask for four, three, five, five, four and seven letters on the sheet shown, so the box count narrows the choice without settling it: two words are four letters long and two are five.

Letter boxes make spelling visible in a way a plain line does not. A child who writes rain into a four-box row can see immediately that snow would have fitted too, and has to go back to the symbol rather than to the count. Because the bank is closed and each word is used once, the page can be finished by reasoning even when one symbol is unfamiliar — rainbow, at seven letters, is the one that is always settled first and often opens up the rest.

One sheet, six words, twenty-eight letters. Print the matching page beside it for a child who does not yet read the words, since that sheet joins each symbol to its word without asking for any writing. This is the spelling face of the weather family and the natural step before the weekly chart, where the words have to be recalled rather than copied.