This fourth grade spelling words game helps children practice 20 fourth grade spelling words by playing: unscramble the letters, pick the correct spelling, race cars or sprint through true and false sentences. The words include adventure, airplane, beautiful and calendar and vegetable, and the wrong choices are realistic mistakes such as a dropped letter or a swapped vowel. Free, with no sign-up.
Fourth grade spelling words game: see how it plays
The grade 4 spelling game opens in Word Scramble and has three more modes. The printable list has all 20 words with a place to write each one.
Word scramble game and three more modes: how the fourth grade spelling words game works
All four modes use the same 20 words, so a child meets each spelling several times in different ways. These examples come from this list:
| Mode | What the child does | Example from this list |
|---|---|---|
| Word Scramble | Taps the letter tiles in order, ten words a round; hearing the word first costs a point | detravnue becomes adventure |
| Balloon Pop | Pops the one correct spelling before the balloons drift off; three misses end the round | different, diffrent, diffferent, defferent |
| Answer Race | Picks the right spelling to move a car forward; the first to 15 beats three computer cars | important or impotrant |
| True or False | Judges spellings for sixty seconds; a streak of five or more scores double | surpise is false, surprise is true |
The wrong spellings are made by dropping a letter, doubling a letter, swapping two neighbors or changing a vowel, the same slips children make in their own writing.
Fourth grade spelling word list: all 20 words in the fourth grade spelling words game
The words are 8 to 9 letters long, with an average of 8.3 letters: 14 have 8 letters and 6 have 9 letters. Use the list for a weekly spelling test, or print the word list and play the game for practice.
| No. | Word | Letters | Spelling tip |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | adventure | 9 | ad-ven-ture, ure says /cher/ |
| 2 | airplane | 8 | air + plane, a compound word |
| 3 | beautiful | 9 | beauty + ful |
| 4 | calendar | 8 | ends in -ar, not -er |
| 5 | chocolate | 9 | choc-o-late, often said choc-late |
| 6 | different | 9 | dif-fer-ent, double f |
| 7 | dinosaur | 8 | saur means lizard |
| 8 | elephant | 8 | ph says /f/ |
| 9 | favorite | 8 | fa-vor-ite |
| 10 | February | 8 | Feb-ru-ar-y, the first r is often silent |
| 11 | important | 9 | im-por-tant, ends in -ant |
| 12 | language | 8 | gu says /gw/ |
| 13 | mountain | 8 | ou says /ow/, ain ending |
| 14 | neighbor | 8 | eigh says long a |
| 15 | question | 8 | qu + estion, stion says /schun/ |
| 16 | surprise | 8 | sur-prise, two r letters |
| 17 | thousand | 8 | ou says /ow/ |
| 18 | together | 8 | to + get + her |
| 19 | umbrella | 8 | um-brel-la |
| 20 | vegetable | 9 | veg-ta-ble: three spoken, four written syllables |
Spelling patterns in the fourth grade spelling words game
Words are easier to learn in groups that share a pattern. These are the patterns in this list:
| Pattern | Words | What to teach |
|---|---|---|
| Word endings | beautiful, different, important, adventure, question | The endings -ful, -ent, -ant, -ure and -tion are worth learning as units. |
| Unstressed letters | February, vegetable, chocolate, calendar, favorite | These words are often said with fewer syllables than they are spelled, so say them slowly for spelling. |
| Compound words | airplane, together | Break the word into small words you can already spell. |
| Greek and French letters | elephant, dinosaur, umbrella | ph says /f/ in elephant, and saur comes from the Greek word for lizard. |
| Tricky vowel patterns | neighbor, mountain, thousand, language, surprise | eigh in neighbor, ou in mountain and thousand, and gu in language break the usual rules. |
Wikipedia’s spelling article explains why English spelling has so many patterns and exceptions, and why teaching patterns works better than memorizing each word alone.
Fourth grade spelling practice: a 4-week plan
Twenty words are easiest to learn in four weekly groups of five. Introduce one group per week, review the earlier groups, and use the game for the final check:
| Week | Words |
|---|---|
| Week 1 | adventure, airplane, beautiful, calendar and chocolate |
| Week 2 | different, dinosaur, elephant, favorite and February |
| Week 3 | important, language, mountain, neighbor and question |
| Week 4 | surprise, thousand, together, umbrella and vegetable |
Each week adds its group to the earlier ones. The patterns to point out:
- Week 1: adventure (word endings), airplane (compound words), beautiful (word endings), calendar (unstressed letters), chocolate (unstressed letters).
- Week 2: different (word endings), dinosaur (greek and french letters), elephant (greek and french letters), favorite (unstressed letters), February (unstressed letters).
- Week 3: important (word endings), language (tricky vowel patterns), mountain (tricky vowel patterns), neighbor (tricky vowel patterns), question (word endings).
- Week 4: surprise (tricky vowel patterns), thousand (tricky vowel patterns), together (compound words), umbrella (greek and french letters), vegetable (unstressed letters).
End each week with a short test of that group plus two words from earlier weeks.
Grade 4 spelling words: where the fourth grade spelling words game fits at school
| Level | What children are expected to do |
|---|---|
| Grade 4 (US) | Language standard L.4.2.d: spell grade-appropriate words correctly, consulting references as needed |
See the Common Core grade 4 language standards for the full wording. In England, several words in this list, such as February, question and surprise, appear on the statutory spelling list for pupils in Years 3 and 4.
Fourth grade spelling words game: frequently asked questions
What are fourth grade spelling words?
They are words that children are expected to learn to spell in grade 4. This game uses 20 of them, including adventure, airplane and beautiful.
How many words are in the fourth grade spelling words game?
There are 20 words in the list, and each round of Word Scramble uses ten of them, chosen at random.
Which spelling pattern has the most words?
Word endings has the most, with 5 words: beautiful, different, important, adventure, question.
What do the wrong spellings look like?
They are slips a child might really write. For different the choices include diffrent (a dropped letter), diffferent (a doubled letter) and defferent (a changed vowel), and for important one choice is impotrant (two letters swapped).