Last week our story was, “Dot and Jabber and the Great Acorn Mystery” and our phonics skill was ‘oo’ as in spoon. I saw a cute spoon anchor chart on Pinterest. The teacher had written all the words on spoons. I thought that would be fun and I love to have my kiddos get up and move during our lessons. So……………. I went to Target to get 100 plastic spoons. I probably didn’t actually need 100, but in my head at that moment I couldn’t accept anything less than a hundred. I also made an amazing find during my spoon bonanza at Target, because, well, duh, it’s Target. As I was walking up to check out I passed these on SALE!
I have eyed these for quite awhile. They are awesome. But, I could never think of a way to actually use them. I couldn’t buy something for the sheer awesome factor alone. Heavens! I stood there gazing at these and holding my million spoons trying to conjure up a way for these spoons to interact with the BIG post it notes. Then it hit me! My kiddos could make their own spoon anchor charts. BAM! I had a reason to buy these, a real honest to goodness reason, a reason that would help to shape the minds of young children. I had no reason NOT to buy them now. I took them home and wrote ‘oo’ words on the spoons. Some of the words rhymed with spoon and some of the words rhymed with foot. Yes, I had many spoons with duplicates because honestly it was hard to come up with 100 different words. When I got to school I spread all 100 spoons around my room. Of course, the kids noticed immediately when they came in and I told them they would have to wait. They could barely contain themselves trying to figure out why spoons were scattered all over the room. Shockingly 100 spoons do cover more area than one would expect. When one little guy noticed that the spoons had writing on them it escalated into a full scale guessing session. I told them I ‘guess’ I couldn’t make them wait to play my game any longer. We gathered at the carpet and I told them that we would be playing a new game that I had just made up in my thinker. But, first I wanted them to watch a couple of videos to help them play the game. At this point I showed a couple of the ‘oo’ videos from Electric Company on Youtube. We reviewed the sounds that ‘oo’ could make and then I knew they were “ready” for my game. The students went back to their tables and they numbered off. I told them that when I said “Go!” person #1 would run (safely) and grab any spoon. As soon as person #1 got back #2 could set out to pick up a spoon. They continued working through everyone in their table group and then they started with #1 again. It is important to note that the spoons were spread out around the room so students weren’t all running in one direction. When all the spoons had been collected I gave each group 2 cups and asked them to sort the spoons by the sound the ‘oo’ made in the word. This was a bit challenging and a great exercise to differentiate the sounds.
Once we had reviewed each group’s sorted spoons, I tasked them with making a “Spoon” poster for their words that had the same ‘oo’ sound as in spoon. This is where those BIG post it notes made their appearance. As expected the kids thought it was amazing that they had big sticky post it notes. AMAZING!
