Back to School SCRABBLE®

[navigation bar]

* Schools Home Page * NSA Home Page * What is the School SCRABBLE(R) Program? * Tips and Activities * Championships

School SCRABBLE® Activities: Issue #16

Educators and parents have been asking us for more School SCRABBLE® activities. Here they are! Every two weeks, a new page will be posted. We welcome your questions and suggestions. Send them to Cindy McCaffery.

Foreign Alternate Spellings

April 23 - May 4, 2001

Americans adopt many foreign words into their language and with them their alternate spellings. List the following words on the chalkboard. Have students work in small groups. Give each group one word. Challenge them to discover the word's origin and find ALL its alternate spellings. (Answers are in parentheses.) They may need to use several different dictionaries and the Internet to find all the spellings. Have groups report their findings to the rest of the class.

genie, genies

Arabic. jin, jins, jinn, jinns, jinnee, jinni, djin, djinn, djinns, djinni, djinny

[cartoon of genie emerging from lamp]

ganef, ganefs

Yiddish. ganev, ganevs, ganof, ganofs, ganef, gonefs, gonif, gonifs, goniff, goniffs, gonof, gonofs, gonoph, gonophs

matza, matzas

Yiddish. matzah, matzahs, matzoh, matzohs, matzo, matzos, matzot, matzoth

czar, czars, czarina, czarinas

Russian. tzar, tzars, tzarinas, tsar, tsars, tsarinas


Suggest students write these words and their spellings in a separate word journal.

[cartoon of journal]

MISSED AN ISSUE?

Browse our archives for back issues from 2000 (issues #1-8) and 2001 (issue #9 and on).

HASBRO is the owner of the registered SCRABBLE® trademark in the United States and Canada. © 2008 HASBRO. All rights reserved. "SCRABBLE® Brand Crossword Game" is the proper way to refer to this unique group of word games and related properties marketed by HASBRO. "SCRABBLE®" is not a generic term. To use it as such is not only misleading but also does injustice to the company responsible for the trademark's longtime popularity. All we ask is that when you mean SCRABBLE® Brand Crossword Game, you say so. 

The SCRABBLE® trademark is owned by J.W. Spear and Sons, PLC, a subsidiary of Mattel, Inc. outside of the United States and Canada. 

For more information about SCRABBLE® or the NSA, or to comment on or correct the contents of this page, please e-mail: info@scrabble-assoc.com 
To report technical difficulties in reading this page,  please contact webmaster John Chew at: jjchew@math.utoronto.ca