Sproutster is a free iPad game that has a concept similar to the one behind Free Rice. The difference between the two games is that Sproutster wants you to spell words and Free Rice wants you to guess the definition of words.

Sproutster asks you to spell three to five letter words by catching letters in a bucket as the letters rain down on you. You don’t need to catch all of the letters. You just need to catch letters in sequence to spell any word that you like (proper nouns don’t count). When you have spelled a word dump it out to make a plant grow. When the plant has reached its full size you move on to the next level. For each plant that is grown Sproutster donates 30-50 grains of rice to the UN WFP.

Applications for Education
Sproutster could be a fun way for students to practice spelling simple words. If your students have a vocabulary list that they are studying in your classroom, have them try spelling the words on that list. My one complaint about Sproutster is that even on the first level the letters fall very quickly. I would like to see a level on which the letters move just a little bit slower.

Thanks to Jen Deyenberg for sharing this fun app.