Friday, October 28, 2011

Build a Potato- a Wonderful Word Wall Game

Last year I found an ADORABLE Easter Bunny Mr. Potato Head that I just had to buy! He was the inspiration for this game. When I found the Monster Mr. Potato Head at Target recently I had to share this game with everyone.


This game is very similar to Read My Mind and can be played with any Mr. Potato Head or Mrs. Potato Head. Each child has his or her own laminated game board. You can use dry erase markers (some are VERY hard to clean off) or a Vis A Vis (each child will need a baby wipe). If someone needs to erase they just use the baby wipe. I usually give them a Kleenex too so they can dry the game board off.

We start off trying to guess a 2 letter word. I draw the 2 blank lines on my board. If a child guesses "e", I will either write it in the blank or write it next to the blank as not being a letter in the word. If "e" is not one of the letters, then we know right away that the word could not be me, we, he or be and we talk about how we know this. As we are playing, I also share with them my thinking of what letter I might guess next and why. We continue until the 2 letter word is guessed. When the word is guessed correctly, the child who guessed the last letter that finishes the word gets to come add a piece to Mr. Potato Head. Then, we all spell the word together using several cheers. We continue playing until we have built our Mr. Potato Head. I have played this game in reading groups too. We played this today and my kiddos L-O-V-E-D it!!!!

Here is what my board might look like as we play.

Here is a child's game board.

Too cute!




I would LOVE a heart note letting me know what you think. 

17 heart notes:

Jessica Lang said...

This is my first time visiting your blog (and it won't be my last :)) and I love all of your ideas! I especially like Build A Potato game. Definitely using it in my classroom :)

Unknown said...

This is such a great idea! I'll be keeping my eyes open for different potato heads now! Thanks for sharing!!

Amy

Anonymous said...

I have just found you and love this idea! Looks like another blog on my addiction list.

Thank you.

Kari said...

I just found your blog and LOVE IT! Great ideas and thanks for the freebies <3 I am really interested in Conscious Discipline too. Do you think it is easy to adapt to non-reading Kinder kids?

Sallie Neal said...

Oh my goodness! This is the cutest idea ever! I struggle to come up with good ideas for teaching word walls and not making the kids bored. I can't wait to try this idea. They will LOVE LOVE LOVE it!!!

Holly said...

Oh, oh, oh - I LOVE this...LOVE it, LOVE, LOVE!!!! We play "rivet" (Patricia Cunningham - remember her?) which is very similar to this, but not NEARLY as fun. If I weren't so scared of the after Black Friday craziness - I'd go out right now!!!!!

Thanks :)

Holly
Crisscross Applesauce in First Grade

Michelle Rist said...

So many great ideas on your blog! I love them all and I'm heading to Wally World right now to find a Mr. Potato Head!

Trish said...

OMG! LOVE this idea!! I just stumbled onto your blog and LOVE it!! Thanks you for sharing all your FABULOUS ideas!

jharpole said...

Love your Blog and your ideas. This build a potato game will work wonderfully with my English Language Learners who struggle with spelling patterns. They will love it! Thanks so much!

HearMyHands said...

I love the different Mr. Potato Heads! I use them in speech/language therapy all the time!! They are great!

Sharing back some love from HearMyHands

Happy Signing
Kristy @ HearMyHands

www.hearmyhandsasl.com

Terri Brown said...

I love this idea! I can't wait to use it. I'm also working on incorporating some of the ideas from CD, and plan to use it to start off the year next year. Love your blog!
Terri

Splendiferous said...

Too, too cute! I'm going to use this to help my sweet students practice their memory work for Classical Conversations. Thank you for being inspirational! xo