IT'S ABOUT TIME for HINK PINKS, et al.

 

Kiddos learn best when they're having fun and few things are more fun that HINK PINKS, HINKY PINKIES, & HINKITY PINKITIES! These word riddles will exercise a multitude of vocabulary skills (definitions, synonyms, parts of speech, rimes, syllables, ...) while challenging students to problem solve. These task cards prompt your learners to interpret data, make inferences, draw conclusions, and analyze new infomation.

Here's how they work:

• HINK PINKS are riddles that call for a 2 word answer. The 2 words must each have 1 syllable and they must rhyme. In the above example, the clue, seize pinching shellfish, has the answer grab crab.
• HINKY PINKIES differ from HINK PINKS in that the answer to the riddle must be 2 words with 2 syllables each. The HINKY PINKY above offers the clue, Pacific wave actions; the answer being ocean motion.
• As you may have guessed, HINKITY PINKITIES require answer words with 3 syllables. The clue above, enormous ocean can be answered with gigantic Atlantic. 

Intriguing aren't they?

It can take students a while to catch on to this word play. Begin with HINK PINKS and solve several together. Demonstrate your thinking. Offer your learners the use of dictionaries and thesauri (print or digital). Complete as many as a group as necessary until you see the lightbulb go on. Once your pupils have a good command of HINK PINKS, move on to HINKY PINKIES. HINKITY PINKITIES are the most challenging, not only because of the vocabulary necessary for the answers, but because the language of the clues is more complex.

Intrigued?  Try this FREE unit, just in time for Groundhog Day:

I'm such a fan of HINK PINKS, et al., that my store offers more than 3 dozen products. There are holiday sets and specially themed sets, such as the OCEANIC HINK PINKS, et al. seen at the top of the page.

The above bundles each contain 4 individual products; the bundles save you 30%.

HINK PINKS, et al., are staples in gifted education, but let me assure you they are great for regular education students, as well. I have used them successfully with 1st graders! Just realize that younger students will need more support.

My HINK PINK, et al. products cover the major holidays and a plethora of special themes.

What if you teach kindergarten or ELL? Then you should try HINK PINKS and HINKY PINKIES for KINDERS. These sets provide visual clues; no reading required.  Check out the FREE set:

If you are new to HINK PINKS, et al., I hope you'll try them.  My students literally beg me to bring these task cards out.

12 Days of Christmas -- Day 5

Today's 12 Days of Christmas gift is Christmas Hink Pinks, et al. These vocabulary riddles are wildly popular with teachers and students alike.  My kiddos literally beg to do more Hink Pinks!

Christmas Hink Pinks, Hinky Pinkies, Hinkity Pinkities, and Hitinkity Pitinkities are not only great for exercising critical thinking, but are perfect for corralling some of that holiday excitement. When you share Hink Pinks, et al., with your class, you will be giving them learning disguised as fun. They will work on vocabulary, parts of speech, synonyms, rimes, making inferences, and interpreting data. That hits a lot of CCS Standards.

If you are not familiar with Hink Pinks, et al., here's an explanation of them:

You can unwrap this gift for free, but only for 48 hours.  So follow this link to my TPT store and download your copy.

Check out these Hink Pink products, too:

The Great Vocabulary Divide

Educational research is replete with studies about THE GREAT VOCABULARY DIVIDE between successful and unsuccessful students; a fact every teacher knows without benefit of those studies.  

While the research shows that the gap begins in infancy (with a 30 million word difference in exposure to words by age 4 between socio economic classes), the import to education is that vocabulary development is crucial to all learning. It is no surprise that children with larger vocabularies are better equipped for learning when they enter school.  After all, by virtue of hearing more words, they are exposed to more grammar, sentence structure, cadence, expression, and countless other aspects of language that are vital to success.  By 3rd grade, when reading shifts from learning to read to reading to learn, the gap is wider; the consequences more pronounced.  Bottom line, children with larger vocabularies are stronger readers and perform significantly better on standardized tests.

What are teachers to do about this divide? Clearly they must create word-rich environments that entice their students to revel in the power of words.  Direct, daily instruction is key, yet research shows that dictionary work is the least effective method. According to Blachowicz, Beyersdorfer, & Fisher (2006), young children need 4 conditions to develop vocabulary knowledge:

1. exposure to new vocabulary
2. engagement and motivation
3. multiple experiences with new words that promote context and definition
4. independent word-learning strategies.

I will argue that children need 3 additional things:

1. teachers who model a love of words
2. interest in and curiousity about words
3. active involvement in "playing" with words.

I am a self-professed logophile.  Words have always intrigued me and word play delights me. It is only natural, then, that I consistently incorporate word play into my curricula. I call it "play" because that is what it feels like to my students.  It's learning disguised as fun and it fulfills all the conditions cited above. 

One example of word play in my class is Hinky Pinkies.

Intrigued? These vocabulary building, critical thinking exercises are so popular with students that they literally beg to do them. How often do you get enthusiasm like that? 

Hinky Pinkies are often thought to be for gifted students. Certainly G/T students love them and engage easily with them. But there is no universal law that restricts them from being used with regular ed. kiddos. I have decades of experience using Hinky Pinkies with heterogeneous groups as young as 2nd grade. In fact, special ed. teachers and speech and language therapists have left positive feedback about using them with their students.  

As a result of working with Hinky Pinkies, your students will not only increase their vocabularies, but gain facility with syllables, phonemes, synonyms, parts of speech, and verb tenses. They exercise their problem solving and critical thinking skills. My children have been known to voluntarily seek out dictionaries and thesauri!

The vocabulary benefits alone should be enough to convince any teacher to try these riddles. But my favorite outcome is the look of pleasure and satisfaction on my students' faces when they solve their first Hinky Pinky all by themselves.

You can find lots of Hink Pinks, Hinky Pinkies, and Hinkity Pinkities in my TPT store, but you can try these for FREE!  And they are just in time for St. Patrick's Day.

Freebie February Day 22

Here's your freebie for today!  I hope you enjoy it.

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February Centers and Freebies

It's about time, teachers, to focus on February.

I'd like you to keep calm and focus on some new centers for your classroom.  

Friendly Frog's Valentine's Day Syllables Center is a low prep literacy center. Friendly Frog appears in many of my syllabication products. This time he challenges your students to sort word cards according to whether they have a prefix or a suffix.

February sports a lot of pink, so you may like Valentine's Day Hink Pinks, Hinky Pinkies, and Hinkity Pinkities.  These riddles that evoke pairs of rhyming words, are wildly popular. They work well in a literacy center, as an anchor activity, a sponge activity, and are the perfect challenge for fast finishers. This set is FREE! So download your copy now.

Scrattle: The Valentine's Day Edition is also FREE!  This center combines word work with computation and spurs your students to create more difficult words through competition.  It really and truly is appropriate for K through 5th grade because you can effortlessly differentiate for math abilities.  3 different recording sheets are provided.  One requires students to use addition, 1 calls for multiplication, and the 3rd uses mixed operations (+, -, x) with parentheses. My students beg for Scrattle. As a result, there are many versions available and all of them are FREE! 

Have you heard?  It's Freebie February in my TPT store.  Each day this month, a different priced item will be offered for FREE for just one day. So check in daily to see what I'm giving away.  

Today's offering is How Many Ways? -- February Edition. This product, like Scrattle, is appropriate for all elementary grade levels. It is a critical thinking, interactive bulletin board activity that could be used as a center, an enrichment challenge, an anchor activity, and/or for differentiation. You can read more about it here.

Literacy Centers for Turkey Time

It's about time, teachers, for some literacy centers especially created for this time of year.

Your students will love working on vocabulary, parts of speech, synonyms, rimes, making inferences, and interpreting data while having fun with Thanksgiving Hink Pinks, Hinky Pinkies, and Hinkity Pinkities.  

If you are not familiar with Hink Pinks, et al., you are in for a treat.  Hink Pinks are riddles wherein the clues lead you to a 2 word answer. Each answer word must have just one syllable and the 2 words must rhyme. Hinky Pinkies are 2 word rhymes with 2 syllables in each word. Hinkity Pinkities are rhyming word pairs with 3 syllables each.  For example:

The answer to this riddle is raise maize.  

This product includes 20 cards with Thanksgiving themed clues and, naturally, an answer sheet. Copy the cards on cardstock (pink, of course), then laminate them for years of use. I recommend solving several clues together to ensure your students’ success. This activity is CCSS aligned.

Turkey Drumsticks uses Thanksgiving vocabulary to practice constructing compound words. Students search for two drumsticks that form a compound word when joined together. They place the pairs on plates until they have found all 9 compound words. 

A recording sheet is included. The recording sheet requires students to write the compound words they found and apply them to the context of the sentences.

Turkey Tails requires students to focus on the long and short vowel sounds of a & e. 

After determining the vowel sound of the word on each tail feather, they will place the feather on the turkey with that vowel symbol. The words used are taken from the first 200 words on the Fry lists. 

This center contains 4 full color work mats, 28 full color feathers, labels for your center folder, and a black & white recording sheet.

Let's Talk Turkey Words exercises your students' abilities to be fluent and flexible in thought and oral language. It will also inform you about your students' command of common spelling patterns and sight words.  

Give each student the letters for one of the 4 seasonal words. Challenge them to create as many words as they can using that set of letters. A recording sheet is included.  This center is CCSS aligned and it's FREE!

Scrattle: Thanksgiving Edition is a learning center that combines word work with computation; individual effort with competition. As in Scrabble™, students use a set of letters to create words. 

After recording their words, they calculate each word’s score using the Scrabble™ letter values. Then they engage a friend in a battle wherein they compare their scores using >, <, and =. 

The student with the most > wins the battle! BTW, Scrattle derives it names from SCRAbble + baTTLE. 

SCRATTLE can be played by students with simple addition capabilities, multiplication abilities, as well as those skilled in solving mixed operations in complex equations. Three different recording sheets are included, providing instant differentiation. This center is also FREE!

It's about turkey time, teachers!  Fill your centers with turkey goodness.

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