Spin the letter wheel
Need to pick a letter? Choose a list, spin, and the letter wheel lands on one at random. It works like an alphabet spinner from a board game, without the box. There are five ready-made lists:
- A–Z: all 26 letters.
- Vowels: A, E, I, O and U.
- Consonants: the other 21 letters.
- No Q, U, V, X, Y, Z: the alphabet without the six letters that are hard to start words with. Good for category games.
- a–z: lowercase letters, which young readers often recognize more easily.
You can also type your own list on the right. Want the letters of a name, a set of phonics sounds, or only the letters your class has learned so far? Replace the list and spin.
Word games you can play with a letter wheel
Categories (like Scattergories). Spin a letter, then everyone writes an animal, a city, a food and a band that start with it, before the timer runs out. Use the list without hard letters so nobody gets stuck on X.
Alphabet challenge. Spin a letter and take turns naming words that start with it. The first person who can’t think of one is out.
Word chain. Spin a starting letter. Each player says a word that starts with the last letter of the previous word.
Name game. Spin a letter and come up with a name, a place, an animal and a thing that start with it.
Pictionary prompt. Spin a letter and draw something that starts with it for the others to guess.
Tip: For category games, choose the list without Q, U, V, X, Y and Z, then remove each letter after you play it so rounds don’t repeat.
In the classroom
- Letter recognition: spin and have students say the letter name and sound.
- Phonics practice: spin a consonant and a vowel and blend them into a sound.
- Spelling warm-up: spin a letter and give students one minute to write as many words as they can.
- Vocabulary: spin a letter and ask for a word from this week’s topic that starts with it.
Turn on Remove from wheel to cycle through the alphabet without repeats, or use full screen to show the wheel on a projector.
Fair and random
The wheel picks each letter with your browser’s secure random number generator before the spin starts, so every letter on the wheel has the same chance every time. Every result is listed in the Results tab, so you can see which letters you’ve already used.