Simple and efficient strategies towards the synthesis of substituted spiro-oxindole and oxazolidine systems by one-pot multi-component catalyst-free reactions utilising aryl aldehydes and a-amino acids have been developed. Owing to their complicated structure and ring strain spiro-oxindole moieties are not easily synthesised. In either route 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions involving non-stabilised azomethine ylides as intermediates, generated in situ from amino acids and aldehydes, with the dipolarophile present in the reaction mixture viz. (E)-bnitrostyrene, were utilised. The route to substituted oxazolidines involved cycloaddition to the C=O bond of a second molecule of the aldehyde.