Planet 7 is different from all of the others: instead of having students work on words that follow certain spelling patterns, the words in this planet are arranged by topic. These are critical words for students to be able to spell: the basic numbers, colors, days, names of family relationships, parts of the body, school-specific terminology, and more. Although this planet might require fewer specific teacher-directed minilessons, we think it is a critical set of levels for students (of virtually all ages) to practice.

Level 6-9 goes back to a final tricky vowel pair combo: the infamous -ie vs. -ei pair. Everyone knows the old "i before e except after c" line, "except in words that say 'a' as in neighbor and weigh." Many memes have been made about the limitations of this rule, however (see below).

For students who manage to conquer all of the levels on Rocket Spelling, we thought a celebratory certificate might be in order. So we've designed one! If you are interested in downloading a copy of our Rocket Spelling congratulatory certificate, please click here.

Additionally, if you have students who conquer all of the Rocket Spelling levels, we'd love to help you celebrate their achievement by making them famous on our Twitter and Facebook accounts!

Levels 6-6 and 6-7 focus on some word endings that students sometimes confuse with each other. Level 6-6 focuses on the -sion and -tion endings. The ten words used in this level are fraction, action, reaction, nation, conclusion, equation, direction, section, mission, and tension.

Level 6-7 focuses on the commonly-confused -cher, -ture, and -sure endings. The ten words used in this level are picture, future, nature, pitcher, pressure, capture, mixture, pleasure, treasure, and adventure.

One great feature of Rocket Spelling is the ability to see all of your students' progress at a glance through the Progress tab in your teacher account. We wanted to make sure you noticed, though, that each cell in that spreadsheet can be clicked for additional information, as seen here:

Last week, the School News Network (an education news site based in Grand Rapids, MI) ran this article about Rocket Spelling. It hints at the heart behind this website: Rocket Spelling is one student's quest to make spelling more fun for the next generation of students than it was for him.

If you enjoy Rocket Spelling, you might also be interested in some of Josh's other creations, all designed to help elementary teachers, such as:

Level 6-5 focuses on high-frequency words that start with either a silent w as part of a 'wr' beginning or a silent k as part of a 'kn' beginning. The ten words used in this level are write, know, known, written, wrong, knife, knit, wrestle, knot, and knock.

Building from the -igh pattern as a long i ending in level 6-2, level 6-3 now explores the very common -ight pattern. The ten words used in this level are right, light, might, night, sight, tight, bright, fight, fright, and flight. Level 6-4 focuses on the varied sounds the -ough pattern can make. The ten words used in this level are enough, tough, rough, cough, although, dough, through, though, doughnut, and toughen.

As the Rocket Spelling launch continues, we're starting to see more photos on Twitter with "action shots" of students loving Rocket Spelling in their classroom. To show us how you're using Rocket Spelling, or to follow us on Twitter, click here.

@RocketSpelling my students beg to do spelling! They love your program so much! pic.twitter.com/TGmLZzMUOE

— Katrina Worthington (@mtnsatheart) September 28, 2017

Since Rocket Spelling launched last month, we've been giving away free classroom accounts for the entire 2017-2018 school year using coupon code 'rocketlaunch.' It has been fun and rewarding to see the response we've received to this point -- thousands of teachers and tens of thousands of students have already benefited from this offer.

But we know that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Many people are still just discovering Rocket Spelling, and we want them to have a chance to try it for free as well. With that in mind, we are extending our 'rocketlaunch' coupon code, which allows teachers to get a completely free, no-strings-attached Rocket Spelling classroom account for the entire 2017-2018 school year. This free offer will now be available through the end of October!