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How many wordscan YOU bu ild in

minu tes ?

The o�icial teacher resource for Word Mania

Starter KitStarter Kit

LiteracyPlanet and Word Mania are registered trademarks of Intrepica Pty Ltd © 20172

ContentsLiteracyPlanet Word Mania 2017Click the links below

Literacy Activity Sheets

Special TeachStarter and LiteracyPlanet Word Mania Activity Bundles for Primary:

Jumble Mania - colour option

Jumble Mania - black and white option

Word Work Grid

Years 1 to 3

Level 1 - Word Finds x 4

Level 1 - Word Shapes x 4

Level 2 - Word Finds x 4

Level 2 - Word Shapes x 4

Level 3 - Word Finds x 4

Level 3 - Word Shapes x 4

Years 4 to 6

Level 4 - Word Finds x 4

Level 5 - Word Finds x 4

Level 6 - Word Finds x 4

Levels 4 - 6 - Ciphers x 3

Levels 4 - 6 - Haiku

Levels 4 - 6 - Word Polygons x 4

Years 7 to 9

Level 7 - Word Finds x 4

Level 8 - Word Finds x 4

Level 9 - Word Finds x 4

Levels 7 - 9 - Find & Correct x 3

Click the links to download

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Posters and CertificatesClick the links to download

Word Mania Certificate 2017

School Noticeboard Poster

Colouring-in Poster Template

Dates

How to Play

Tips & Tricks

Word Buddies

Scoring & Leaderboards

Badges & Credits

Prizes

Literacy Activities

Creative Activities

Take Home Letter

‘Word Mania 2017’ Certificate

School Noticeboard Poster

Colouring-In Poster Template

LiteracyPlanet and Word Mania are registered trademarks of Intrepica Pty Ltd © 20173

LiteracyPlanet Word Mania 2017 Australia and New Zealand’s most fun literacy competition for schoolsWord Mania is one of LiteracyPlanet’s most popular exercises, a race against the countdown word building challenge. The competition is free, and a fun and effective way for students of all ages to improve their literacy skills.

Schools that already use LiteracyPlanet have automatic access to the competition and can contact LiteracyPlanet on 1300 565 696 to arrange competition logins for students who do not currently use the program. Teachers from schools that do not use LiteracyPlanet can register their school at www.wordmania.com/au/

Word Mania is accessible on desktop and mobile devices. Students with a LiteracyPlanet login can simply log in to LiteracyPlanet on desktop and click on the Word Mania icon, or can download the free Word Mania 2017 app (iOS and Android).

The competition is by year level for Years 1 to 9. Students can play as many times as they like, at school or at home. We encourage schools to let parents and caregivers know students are participating in Word Mania with a special letter to take home and notices for the school newsletter.

Schools can monitor their position on regional and whole of competition leaderboards. There is more than $350,000 in prizes to be won, and lots of rewards for both participation and skill.

Registration & Practise - Thursday, June 1 - Sunday, July 30.

Competition Round 1- Monday, July 31 to Friday, August 4.

Competition Round 2 - Monday, August 7 to Friday, August 11.

Final Round - Wednesday, August 16 to Friday, August 18.

Download the app:

www.wordmania.com/download

This starter pack includes lots of fun pages to print out and paste on yournoticeboard!

Word Mania 2017 Dates

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How to Play• From a board of 15 randomly generated letter tiles, players

have three minutes to create as many words as they can.

• By dragging and rearranging letter tiles into the word panel, players build, extend and rebuild words in a race against the countdown!

• Word building is a great challenge for developing literacy skills and fun for all ages. It involves phonemes, morphemes including affixes and plurals, spelling, word recognition, vocabulary and word knowledge.

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Tips & TricksTop 10 tips for Word Mania

Don’t waste time making rude or inappropriate words. These are invalid and won’t earn a score.

Longer and more complex words earn more points.

Get more value out of a base word by adding prefixes and suffixes.

Increase your word score multiplier by building valid words quickly in consecutive order, and using the special Gold and Diamond letter tiles when these appear on the letter board.

If you pause or stop, your multiplier will reduce.

If you ‘mark’ an invalid word, your multiplier will reset to zero.

Increase your multiplier five times in a row and you earn a special Gold tile, and your multiplier will increase to 10 times.

The fifth time you earn a Gold tile, you will instead get a Diamond tile, and your multiplier will increase to 20 times.

Building a word with a Gold or Diamond tile earns bonus points, but be quick and choose your word carefully - special tiles can only be used once and if you are too slow they can disappear.

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Top Tip

start by building as many small words as you can, as quickly as you can, to increase your multiplier, then spell a bigger word for a multiplied big score!

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Play against Word BuddiesPlay against friends and classmates by becoming Word Buddies.

To make a friend a Word Buddy, click ‘Challenge a Friend’ and send your friend a Word Buddy request. They will also need to have a login for the competition, and you need to know their username. When a friend accepts your Word Buddy request they will be added to your Word Buddy list.

To play a Word Buddy challenge, choose a friend from your Word Buddy list and click ‘Challenge a Word Buddy’ to send them a Challenge Request. This will appear on their dashboard. Challenge Requests sent to you from your Word Buddies will appear on your dashboard.

When you play against a Word Buddy you will both get the same letter tiles for your challenge game.

See all your challenge results under ‘Challenges’. Think you can do better? Rematch!

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LiteracyPlanet and Word Mania are registered trademarks of Intrepica Pty Ltd © 20177

Scoring & LeaderboardsThe Word Mania competition is for Years 1 to 9.

To compete in a year level, a school must have at least five students from that year level.

From June 12, teachers and students can see their school’s position on regional leaderboards linked from their dashboards, and on the competition leaderboard at www.wordmania.com/au/. The leaderboards are updated daily. Teachers can see which region they are in from their dashboard.

ParticipationParticipation leaderboards show the average number of games completed per student in that year level at that school.

At the start of Competition Rounds 1 and 2, the participation leaderboards will be reset and schools will be able to see their position and average games per student for that round.

SkillSkill leaderboards are based on the sum of the highest 50 individual game scores achieved by students in that year level, with a maximum of 10 scores achieved by a single student.

Once the competition starts, on Monday, July 31 the skill leaderboards will be reset and schools will be able to see their scores. The leaderboards for skill are on the Word Mania website at www.wordmania.com/au/.

Q. How are the participation rankings determined?

A. The average number of games played per student in that year level.

Q. How are the competition scores determined?

A. The sum of the top 50 game scores. No matter how big or small your school is, you only need five players in one year level to play at least 10 games each to get onto the leaderboard!

Important

The most important rule for Word Mania is to have fun. The other one is for students to play their competition games without assistance. To contribute valid competition scores, students must be logged in and play unaided. Students can practise with parents or helpers by logging out and using the practice game.

LiteracyPlanet and Word Mania are registered trademarks of Intrepica Pty Ltd © 20178

Badges & Credits

BadgesThere are 20 cool Word Mania badges for students to earn.• Playing 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 games.• Using 10, 25 and 50 Gold tiles. • Using 10, 25 and 50 Diamond tiles.• Spelling the word ‘mania’ in a game• Adding a Word Buddy, and adding

20 Word Buddies.• Playing one Word Buddy challenge, and

playing 10 Word Buddy challenges.• Playing in every round in the competition.• Scoring 10,000 and 100,000 points.• Creating the secret body, face

and suit combination for your Word Mania mini-beast!

CreditsStudents playing Word Mania will also have access to the whole of LiteracyPlanet during the competition, with thousands of interactive and engaging exercises for all literacy skills.

Starting from June 30, for every day that a student plays a Word Mania game they will receive 10 LiteracyPlanet credits. The credit system in LiteracyPlanet is part of what motivates and engages students. Credits can be redeemed for cool swag to customise their avatar, and multi-player games in the Arcade section of the program.

If your school uses LiteracyPlanet, at the end of the competition these credits will be transferred to the students’ regular LiteracyPlanet accounts.

ImportantTo contribute valid competition scores and earn these rewards, students must be logged in before they play Word Mania, so their score can be recorded.

Prizes

Practice Round

June 1 - July 30

Regional Competition

Competition Winners

*All schools can continue to play Word Mania until the final round ends on August 18, but only competition finalists are eligible to compete for the final prizes.

• Glory of being Word Mania year level champion

• $1000 voucher for school resources

• 5 x TeachStarter licences

• Glory of being Word Mania year level champion

• ‘EZ Robot and Wanhao Duplicator i3 3D printer (v2.1) pack

Years 1-6 Years 7-9

• $500 voucher for school resources

• $500 voucher for school resources

• $250 voucher for school resources

• $250 voucher for school resources

1st

2nd

3rd

WordMonster and the LiteracyPlanet team will be monitoring activity ready to reward year groups for doing well or trying hard.

20 prizes to be won for special achievements, such as:• achieving highest word score in a day• playing the highest number of games in one day• spelling the most words in one day

ParticipationRound 1 July 31 - August 4

At the end of each round:Years 1 - 6

• Certificates for Top 3

• First place wins one

TeachStarter licence

SkillJuly 31 — August 11

At the end of the competition: Years 7 - 9• Certificates for top 3

• First place receives

$50 voucher for

school resources

Years 1 - 6• Certificates for Top 3

• First place receives two

TeachStarter licences

The top school for each year level in each region becomes a Word Mania 2017 Finalist!

June 1 — July 30

Years 7 - 9• Certificates for Top 3

Round 2 August 7 - August 11

Regional Competition

July 31 - August 11

Final Round

August 16 - August 18*

All winners receive a Word Mania Trophy

LiteracyPlanet and Word Mania are registered trademarks of Intrepica Pty Ltd © 201710

Literacy ActivitiesWord Building in the Classroom Word building involves many different literacy skills: phonemes, morphemes including affixes and plurals, spelling, word recognition, vocabulary and word knowledge. Incorporate word building fun into literacy activities in the classroom.

GroupsUsing scrabble tiles, magnetic letter tiles or plastic alphabet letters, take turns building words. Or cut out the letters from headlines in old magazines, mix them up in a container and draw ten each. How many words can each student and group make?

For more advanced options, try this:

- Use a stopwatch and race against time.

- Choose a theme or topic for words.

- Earn extra points for building words from the class spelling list, or words with morphemes.

- When finished identify which words from the list have morphemes.

- When finished take turns to provide a definition for the words built.

- Play in a foreign language!

PairsUse the Word Buddy feature in Word Mania to play against a friend!

Students simply log in to their Word Mania 2017 dashboard, click on ‘Challenge a Friend’, send Word Buddy requests to their classmates and build their Word Buddy list. Then they can choose a friend to challenge by clicking on ‘Challenge a Word Buddy’. Students who play a Word Buddy challenge against each other are given the same 15 letter tiles for their challenge game.

Activity BundlesUse the Word Mania 2017 activity sheets for hours worth of challenging literacy activities to help sharpen word building skills.

Years 1 to 3

Level 1 - Word Finds x 4

Level 1 - Word Shapes x 4

Level 2 - Word Finds x 4

Level 2 - Word Shapes x 4

Level 3 - Word Finds x 4

Level 3 - Word Shapes x 4

Years 4 to 6

Level 4 - Word Finds x 4

Level 5 - Word Finds x 4

Level 6 - Word Finds x 4

Levels 4 - 6 - Ciphers x 3

Levels 4 - 6 - Haiku

Levels 4 - 6 - Word Polygons x 4

Years 7 to 9

Level 7 - Word Finds x 4

Level 8 - Word Finds x 4

Level 9 - Word Finds x 4

Levels 7 - 9 - Find & Correct x 3

Special TeachStarter and LiteracyPlanet Word Mania Activity Bundles for Primary

Jumble Mania - colour option

Jumble Mania - black and white option

Word Work Grid

Click on the links below to download

Using your spelling words or a list of words provided to you by your teacher, complete the activitiesin the grid below.

Cross o� the activities once you have completed them!

Word Detective

Write three clues about each of your words. Ask someone to try to guess your words using your

clues.

Rhyming Wheels

Think of as many words as you can that rhyme with

your list of words.

Code Breaker

Create your own codes for your words using the code guide on the Code Breaker

worksheet.

Crossword Creation

Create your own crossword using your words. Don’t forget to provide clues for each

word.

Word Worth

Use the Word Worth worksheet to calculate the

value of each of your words. Highlight the

word/s that are worth the most and the least.

Texting Words

Translate your spelling words into numbers using the phone keypad on the Texting Words worksheet.

Write the number that represents each word.

Scrambled

Write each of your spelling words, jumbled up on the left-hand side of a piece of paper. Swap with a partner

and see if they can unscramble each of the

words.

Word Search

Create your own word search using all your

words.

Cartoon Connection

Create a cartoon strip using as many words as

you can.

Lie Detector

Write a true or false statement explaining or relating to each of your

words. Swap with a partner and see if they can

correctly identify if the statement is true or false.

Wacky Words

On a sheet of paper, write your words in di�erent directions, filling up the

whole sheet. Use di�erent colours and types of

writing for each word.

Tongue Twisters

Write a tongue twister for each of your spelling

words.

E.g. The big brown bear buys berry bubblegum.

Spelling Search

Search through old magazines or newspapers

to find as many spelling words as you can. Cut

them out and glue them on a piece of paper.

Spelling Charades

With a partner, act out something that starts with the letters in your words.

The person guessing must put all the letters together to try to guess the word

you are spelling!

Digging in the Dictionary

Use a dictionary to find the definition and write a sentence for each of your

words.

www.literacyplanet.com 4.1

Name: Date:

Find the following words in the puzzle.

Words are hidden and .

AISLES ROADS STRUMAPPEAL RULER SUCKSBOLDER SAILS TAXESCLOCKS SELLS TOASTDIFFER SIXES WELLSOILED SLING ZESTSQUEUE SOILSRAINS STEER

WORD FIND

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11 LiteracyPlanet and Word Mania are registered trademarks of Intrepica Pty Ltd © 2017

Creative ActivitiesGet students involved in these fun activities to exercise their creative skills. They could inspire a new exercise in the LiteracyPlanet program or even get your school featured on TV!

Writing Task

Rumour has it that Word Mania began when the scheming Pirate Penguins of LIteracyPlanet built a complexcontraption to generate the longest English word possible. Impatient, they added an unpredictable booster potion and letter tiles erupted everywhere. The inhabitants of LiteracyPlanet then had to set about cleaning up, which they did by creating words as fast as possible, to feed to a ravenous Word Monster...

Use the history of Word Mania as inspiration for a short story. At the end of Word Mania 2017 a winning story will be chosen to be adapted into an educational game for the LiteracyPlanet program. If your students would like the opportunity to see their writing brought to life as a digital game for their classmates and students around the world to enjoy, send us their stories!

Submissions should be emailed to wmstory@literacyplanet.com with the student’s name, year level and school. Maximim length is 500 words. Files should be no bigger than 5MB.

Short Video

Create a short video showing the fun and excitement of Word Mania at your school and it could be part of our LiteracyPlanet Word Mania 2017 highlight reel or even end up on television! Students can flex their creative film-making skills, and include graphics, digital animation, stop-motion animation, time-lapse, or create a video story. Last year school videos were featured in our Word Mania highlight reel and a story celebrating the winners on the Channel Nine TODAY show.

Videos should be sent to wmvideo@literacyplanet.com with school and teacher contact details. Maximim length is two minutes. Larger files can be sent via a file sharing service such as www.wetransfer.com.

The creators of the winning writing task, video and poster (next page) will also receive a credit of $300 towards a LiteracyPlanet subscription for their school!

More Prizes

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Word Mania 2017 Colouring-In Poster TemplateBring LiteracyPlanet Word Mania to life in art class using the Word Mania poster template. Students can use any art or craft medium such as pencils, ink, paints, pastels or collage. Masterpieces will be showcased on the LiteracyPlanet Facebook page and website.

Email a high resolution photograph or scan of any finished poster to wmposter@literacyplanet.com with the student’s name, year level and school. Files should be no bigger than 5MB.

Download Template

LiteracyPlanet and Word Mania are registered trademarks of Intrepica Pty Ltd © 2017

NameYear Level School

LiteracyPlanet and Word Mania are registered trademarks of Intrepica Pty Ltd © 2017

NameYear Level School

Creative Activities

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LiteracyPlanet Word Mania 2017!Take Home InformationDear Parent,

Your child’s school is participating in LiteracyPlanet Word Mania 2017, Australia and New Zealand’s biggest and most fun literacy competition.

Word Mania is a fun and effective way for students to improve their literacy skills.

To participate children simply log in to their LiteracyPlanet account and click on the Word Mania icon, or download the free LiteracyPlanet Word Mania 2017 app. (iOS and Android).

Word Mania 2017 Dates

Practise from Thursday, June 1

Competition Round 1 - Monday, July 31 to Friday, August 4.

Competition Round 2 - Monday, August 7 to Friday, August 11.

Final Round - Wednesday, August 16 to Wednesday, August 18.

How to Play Word Mania is an interactive online word building game. Players are given a board of 15 randomly generated letters, and have three minutes to create as many words as they can. Every valid word formed earns points. Longer and more complex words score higher, and scores can be boosted by building valid words consecutively, and using special Gold and Diamond letter tiles.

Word building uses various literacy skills: phonemes, morphemes including affixes and plurals, spelling, word recognition, vocabulary and word knowledge.

Students can play as many times as they like, and the sum of the highest 50 game scores by at least five students from the same grade will be their school’s score for that year level.

$350,000 in Prizes!There is more than $350,000 in prizes for schools including TeachStarter subscriptions, trophies and cash for winning schools.

For more information visit www.wordmania.com/au/

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LiteracyPlanet and Word Mania are registered trademarks of Intrepica Pty Ltd © 201715

How many wordscan YOU bu ild in

minu tes ?$350,000

worth of PRIZES

LiteracyPlanet and Word Mania are registered trademarks of Intrepica Pty Ltd © 2017

Australia’s biggest and most fun literacy competition for schools!For Years 1 to 9. Starts July 31, 2017.

Register now at www.wordmania.com/au/

LiteracyPlanet and Word Mania are registered trademarks of Intrepica Pty Ltd © 201716

LiteracyPlanet and Word Mania are registered trademarks of Intrepica Pty Ltd © 2017

Name Year Level School

LiteracyPlanet and Word Mania are registered trademarks of Intrepica Pty Ltd © 201717

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