The goal of this activity is to practice spelling and word recognition. First, I write this on the board and ask the students "What's this word?"
egma
Usually this makes the students confused, so I write the word game below it and draw arrows showing that I've mixed up the letters in the word. I write a couple more examples on the board and ask the students if they can figure them out:
- cesroc (soccer)
- herbtor (brother)
- recboot (October)
- cachetool (chocolate)
If a word is particularly difficult, you can give a big hint by revealing the first (and then maybe the last) letter.
After that, I pass out the papers and ask the students to come up with their own example to quiz their classmates. In my attachment, I tried to cut down on paper use by putting two on each page, so when you print it out, chop it in half before you pass it out to the students.
Ask the students to fold the paper on the dotted line and write their word above the fold. Write the mixed-up word in the boxes below the fold. When they quiz their friends, they should ask "What word is this?" A student who answers correctly can sign on the left, and students with incorrect answers sign on the right. Of course, it's no big deal if they're correct or incorrect, but sometimes it's fun to ask at the end if any students had a particularly difficult (or easy) word and then write it up on the blackboard for everyone to try and guess.
I recommend limiting the students' choice of word to recently covered vocabulary. Usually I tell them they can pull vocabulary words from the last two chapters of the textbook that we're using. You could also use it to review words like days of the week, months, or any other group of words where you want to practice spelling.