The New Game
As part of her sub plans, the teacher I filled in for today left me a new game she wanted me to teach to the kids in small groups so that they might be able to play it independently during center time in the future. I looked at the instructions and chose a version of the game that would best accomodate small groupings of first graders working on their own.
As per her instructions, I called over small groups of students to learn the game while the rest of the class worked on their centers today. The game itself was fairly simple, and the version of rules I chose kept the format simple enough for everyone to follow. There were two decks of cards: one with beginning sounds (individual letters or blended sounds) and ending word sounds. Every student in the game was dealt five ending word sounds. A typical hand might include "-ick, -it,-at, -uck, and -am" Then each student took turns drawing a beginning sound and matching it up to form words. The goal was to match all the cards in your hands with a beginning sound.
The students have been working hard on their letter sounds and grew quite agitated with me when I said "skor" wasn't a word, nor was "wram". The students both gave me several examples of the words "score" and "ram" to set me straight. Then we had a whole bunch of words that were indeed words, but the students just didn't know them. Words like "skit" and a "bray" and "jock".
When I left my notes for the day for the teacher, I made sure to mention these concerns with the game. Knowing her intentions to allow them to work independently on it, I wanted her to be aware that it might raise some issues.
Most importantly, however, I also let her know what an interesting round of play we had when one student paired "d" with "-am" and once he had it all sounded out, thought his new word was hysterical. He was quickly out done when a second player accidentally paired up "f" with "-uck" and only upon sounding it out outloud did he realize his blunder. Before I could stop him, a third studentpaired up "sh" with "-it" and nearly fell out of his chair laughing. Even "dr" paired with "-unk" brought on a squeal of laughter.
I can just hear these children reporting back to mom and dad tonight the new game they learned with a substitute today.
As per her instructions, I called over small groups of students to learn the game while the rest of the class worked on their centers today. The game itself was fairly simple, and the version of rules I chose kept the format simple enough for everyone to follow. There were two decks of cards: one with beginning sounds (individual letters or blended sounds) and ending word sounds. Every student in the game was dealt five ending word sounds. A typical hand might include "-ick, -it,-at, -uck, and -am" Then each student took turns drawing a beginning sound and matching it up to form words. The goal was to match all the cards in your hands with a beginning sound.
The students have been working hard on their letter sounds and grew quite agitated with me when I said "skor" wasn't a word, nor was "wram". The students both gave me several examples of the words "score" and "ram" to set me straight. Then we had a whole bunch of words that were indeed words, but the students just didn't know them. Words like "skit" and a "bray" and "jock".
When I left my notes for the day for the teacher, I made sure to mention these concerns with the game. Knowing her intentions to allow them to work independently on it, I wanted her to be aware that it might raise some issues.
Most importantly, however, I also let her know what an interesting round of play we had when one student paired "d" with "-am" and once he had it all sounded out, thought his new word was hysterical. He was quickly out done when a second player accidentally paired up "f" with "-uck" and only upon sounding it out outloud did he realize his blunder. Before I could stop him, a third studentpaired up "sh" with "-it" and nearly fell out of his chair laughing. Even "dr" paired with "-unk" brought on a squeal of laughter.
I can just hear these children reporting back to mom and dad tonight the new game they learned with a substitute today.
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