Hey y’all!
How’s the week going so far?! If it’s anything for you like it is for me, then it’s crazy…and jam packed full of Halloween insanity {I’m talking about the kids, of course;)} I love, love, LOVE Halloween, but I know you feel me when I say that celebrating it at school with the kids is nothing short of….well…crazy. Fun, absolutely. But crazy nonetheless. I feel ya, friends. I really do!
But let’s go ahead and keep it business as usual until all Hallow’s Eve and remain thankful that Friday’s festivities don’t coincide with a full moon {can I get an amen?!!??!}
I wanted to share a fun game with y’all that I shared with my friends in TN last week. I’m all about incorporating games into learning. Hands-on, life sized, kinesthetic, get’cha-up-and-movin’ kinda games. I love that my kids make connections to these games days/weeks/months after playing when they’re independently working on similiar concepts at different points during the year. And let’s be real…games are just plain FUN. And that’s just how learning {and teaching!!!} should be…FUN!!!!
One of the most important…and oftentimes trickiest…skills to teach our early readers is how to blend onsets/rimes/phonemes. Here’s a game that garnered rave reviews from my kids over the years. It’s a little onset/rime blending game that’ll get your kids up and moving, blending sounds, and identifying real and nonsense words. Let’s play, shall we?!
Label a small set of plates with various word endings/families {rimes}. As you can see in the pic above, I have lots of different rimes on my plates. You could play this game using as few as 1 or as many as you want! Label a set of index cards with different phonemes/onsets. Place the labeled plates in a circle on the floor and hand out one labeled index card to each of your kids. While your kids are holding their cards, direct them to stand in a circle around the plates.
Now start the music. Crank it or yank it. Pump up the jam {does that date me?!?!?} I like to turn on KidzBop when we play this game because the kids love it and I actually know the words so I can sing along, too. While the music is playing, the kids will move around the plates going clockwise/counterclockwise {just like musical chairs}. When the music stops, the kids stop in front of a plate.
The kids will take their index card {onset/phoneme} and blend it with the word ending/rime they’re standing in front of. If they blend a real word, they stay in the game. If the word they blend is nonsense, they’re out. {You could potentially have several kids out at once depending on the number of different onsent/rimes you include in the game}. Unlike musical chairs, you won’t remove any of the plates. Start the music again, sing for a bit, stop, and blend. Wash. rinse. repeat. The game is all over when only one person is standing 🙂
To keep the other kids engaged in the activity when they get out, you could have them take out their dry erase boards/sleeves and write the real/nonsense words as they’re called out during play. Encourage those that are “out” to use 1-2 of the real words in a sentence while the music is playing. There are lots of ways to keep non-participants engaged and learning!!
I hope you can use this fun little game in your room. Maybe on Friday perhaps?! Because when trick-or-treating is on the mind, a game is absolutley necessary 🙂
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What a great idea and game to keep the littlies engaged!!
Awesome idea – thank you! I've got some movers & shakers who will really benefit from this 🙂
Jen
How many plates do you use? As many as the number of students you have? So they each get a plate to stand in front of? Thank you, GREAT IDEA!!
G.R.E.A.T idea! Thanks so much for sharing!
What a fun activity. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
ღDeAnne
First Grade and Fabulous
This sounds like fun! Thanks for sharing the idea.
superb!!!going to try it out