Ribbon Spool Speller Toy

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I have lots of ribbon. I love collecting it when I see it on sale at the craft store so I can do different projects with it. Now I have an idea to use all of the leftover ribbon spools when you finish the ribbon off!  You can make a ribbon spool speller toy to help kids learn to spell some new words.

How to Make a Ribbon Spool Speller Toy:

Making a ribbon spool speller is not hard at all!  You need a few empty ribbon spools, a pencil and some paint if you want it a different color. You also will need some pencil toppers. We used 5 spools originally, but I found it was easier for my kids to spell words with four letters.

We started by making just the right blue.  😉  Then we painted the inside of the ribbon spools. You can also paint two ends so the outside is also colored.

Once the paint is dry, you can use a parker or pen to write letters around the inside of the spool. Use a variety of letters so there are lots of options for spelling words. If you use a wider ribbon spool it is easier to write the letters. Mine were all skinny ones and it was a little difficult to squeeze my pen in there and write letters.

Put a pen through the center of all of the spools. You need something to secure the ends of the pencils. You can use pencil toppers or bigger eraser toppers. They need to be big enough to keep the spools on. We had some from Christmas hanging around that we used.

Now you just spin the spool speller to find the letters to spell different words! This would be great to use with their spelling lists to practice spelling!