Playing With Words ~ Language Levity for Little Scholars (K-2)

These activities complement The Primary Education Thinking Skills™ curriculum, in particular the thinking skills associated with Yolanda the Yarnspinner and Isabel the Inventor! If you use P.E.T.S., you might also enjoy the activities found HERE.

These language and wordplay activities are perfect for small group instruction and will delight younger students. They also fit in beautifully with the universal theme of PATTERNS.

C D B! – I love to show the cover of this book to kindergarteners and watch for the light bulbs to go off! “See the bee! Oh, I get it! See the bee!” If you’re not familiar with this book, it doesn’t take long to get hooked on the letter “puzzles.”

LESSON IDEAS: After showing the cover, ask students if they can think of other letters in the alphabet that sound like words (e.g. R = are, M = am). Depending on your students and their levels, you may want to let them try creating some “letter sentences” before reading the book. Your students might also enjoy C D C? by the same author.

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KNOCK-KNOCK JOKES – In one of the P.E.T.S.™ books, there is a lesson that guides students in creating riddles. My students had varying degrees of success with that lesson. An introduction to knock-knock jokes could serve as an alternative or extension.

LESSON IDEAS: The key to this activity is to pause for a long time after reading the name of the person at the door, and give students time to brainstorm possibilities. Read a few knock-knock jokes to be sure that students have picked up the pattern. Then, beginning with simpler names, challenge students to think of how each name could be used to form a sentence. Ask, “How could you use the name ‘Mark’ to create an answer to ‘Mark who?'” Have students brainstorm a list of responses before reading the one in the joke book.

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WHAT’S MY WORD? – My older students really enjoy MAD GAB®, so I thought it would be fun to create an interactive version for younger students. Most kindergartener GT students are readers, so you could try it with them, but I think it would be perfect for first-grade GT students. Click through the sample slides below to preview; make a copy HERE.

LESSON IDEAS: Introduce the game by showing one or two slides. Young students will tend to read out loud and shout out their answers, so you may want to prepare the group for that. Before sharing each answer, you could challenge students to spell the correct word. You might also do some vocabulary development if students are unfamiliar with words such as icycle or planter. The pictures should help with that. Share this with your older students, too, and challenge them to create additional words using the Mad Gab® structure that you can use with the younger students.

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DAILY WORD LADDERS ~ Your students will think of these as puzzles or games, but they will be using convergent thinking as they analyze word structures and work their way up the ladders.

LESSON IDEAS: Use the “Look Inside” previews to determine the best level for your students. For advanced students, the levels would probably overlap. I would suggest the following:

Fall Kindergarten – Daily Word Ladders for Grades 1-2
Kinder – First Grade – Daily Word Ladders for Grade 2-3
Second and Third Grade – Daily Word Ladders for Grades 4-6

There are a number of ways you could use these in small group lessons. Put the pages in sheet protectors and have students work in pairs to solve them. Place a page under your document camera and have the group work through the ladder together. If you are sharing with a small group at a table, you could give each student a small whiteboard and have the group write the word for each step as you get to it.

ABC-123 PUZZLES ~ This is a ready-to-share slide show with word puzzles using letters and numbers to form words such as “gr8” for “great” and “10t” for “tent.” It is a junior activity with some ties to “inflationary language” (see More Pun and Games: A Little Language Levity). Click through the sample slides below to preview; make your own copy HERE.

LESSON IDEAS: I would share these in much the same way as the Mad Gab Jr. slides. You could again challenge them to think of their own words and sentences and perhaps post them in the room.

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PALINDROMES ~ Capitalize on the fact that these will be new to your youngest students! Introduce them by showing the picture below. Ask them to figure out what the words have in common. HINT: Don’t think about what they MEAN. Look at the LETTERS.

LESSON IDEAS: Elicit additional palindrome words playing the “Who am I?” game:

• I’m a palindrome that happens once every day, when the sun is high in the sky. (noon)
• I’m a palindrome that blinks a lot. (eye)
• I’m a palindrome that has a son or daughter (dad)

Students may notice palindromes when they’re reading (e.g. did, sees, pop). Challenge students to write sentences incorporating more than one palindrome (e.g. Mom brought home a new pup.)

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OFF LIMITS GAME ~ If you’ve played the game Taboo,™ you know that the object is to give clues that lead to someone guessing a “target” word. However, the clue must not include taboo words; these are “off-limits.” Here are free kid-friendly cards that can be used to play the game orally with advanced students as young as kindergarten. This was shared in a previous post, and if you’re interested, there are adaptations to use with older students.

LESSON IDEAS: Have your students sit on the floor and have one student stand facing the group, back to the screen. Display an Off Limits card, and ask members of the group to raise their hands to give clues. When the “guesser” correctly guesses the word, the last person to give a clue is next to stand up and guess. It may take some practice for students to omit the words that are off-limits. Emphasize THINKING and having the clue ready BEFORE raising a hand!

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You may also be interested in these previous posts about MATHEMATICAL POETRY and a project using another fun pattern book, Q IS FOR DUCK.

Of course, there are many delightful books that play on words and many other ways to have fun with words, and here I’ve just tried to share a few novel activities. If you have wordplay activities for advanced or gifted K-2 students that you’d like to share, please consider leaving a comment or writing a guest blog post.