Poly Spot Sight Words/Spelling Game

Do you know those ideas that evolve from a passing thought? This is one of them!

My principal got us us poly spots to do some exercise and movement in the classroom, and I used them occasionally, but not too often. One day at a staff meeting, my principal asked how we could use poly spots to teach across the curriculum.

Off the top of my head, I could think of a few ideas for math but ELA?!  It took a bit of thinking but here’s what I came up with!

I print our current sight words on index cards in all different colors, and I print enough so that each child has five cards.  It ends up for a lot of cards!  I only print one set for each month so I’m not printing them too often!

When I do the lesson, I give each student a poly spot and five cards (the cards are stored with 5 cards together of the same color together for time/organization purposes).  I make sure that each student has five cards in a different color than their partner.

I have the students hide their five cards under their poly spot and put some music on the smartboard in Smart Notebook.  I link each speaker with a different upbeat, kid-friendly song and let the kids pick which song they want to play.  The kids love the bright speakers!

Anyway, back to the game.  Each child has their five cards under their poly spots and when the music starts, the kids dance around!  When the music stops, they have to stop dancing and pull a word out from under their poly spot.  I play two different variations of this game:

1. Reading – Show your partner the word you picked and have them read it.
2. Spelling – Read your card to your partner and have them spell it for you.

Once the partners read/spell the words, they trade cards with their partner and put them at the bottom of their pile.  (This is where it is helpful to have the two different colors… I used to give each pair the same color but they some students kept picking the same two words!  The different colors help students find a new word quicker and helps keep some variation with the words!)

At the end of the game, I collect the cards in groups of five to store for next time.  The kids absolutely love playing this game and ask to play it all the time!

My favorite part of this game (aside from the music, dancing, and excitement!) is its versatility.  A 3rd grade teacher at my school had the kids write their own word problems on index cards and answer their partner’s word problems.  You can literally use this for any sort of review… my kids even asked me if we could do this for number order before our math test! 

Come check out some other great sight words ideas at the linky party hosted by April over at Wolfelicious:

Also, be sure to visit the sight word/spelling ideas visit the linky party going on at The Lesson Plan Diva!

Let me know how you could adapt this idea to use with your kids!  Or let me know any other fun ways you use poly spots in your classroom!