Valentine's Day Hink Pink FREEBIE

Ever since I attended my 1st state conference for Gifted and Talented Education early in my career, I have seen, heard and read about Hink Pinks.  These vocabulary building, problem solving, critical thinking riddles are staples in GATE.  Perhaps my connection with Hink Pinks, et al, is best explained by the fact that my students absolutely love them!  They loved them when I was in the classroom and when I became an enrichment resource teacher, my pull-out students literally begged for more of them.

If you are new to the land of Hink Pinks, here's how they work:

• Hink Pinks are riddles wherein the clues lead you to a 2 word answer.  Each answer word must have just 1 syllable and the 2 answer words must rhyme.
• Hinky Pinkies are riddles seeking answers with 2 syllables in each word.  The 2 words must rhyme.
• Hinkity Pinkities are rhyming answer word pairs with 3 syllables each.

Some teachers like to distribute Hink Pink clues on a work sheet, but I continually strive to eliminate worksheets from my teaching. About 20 years ago, I started putting the clues on 1/4 sheet cards. By doing so, I was able to create a resource that was ready to use year after year, saving me bunches of time and conserving paper big time!  

Armed with my Hink Pink, et al cards, I was able to use them as an anchor activity when students were arriving each morning. They also work well as a sponge activity and are great at a literacy center.  Now, working as a pull-out enrichment specialist, I use these cards as a warm-up activity. Without a doubt, G/T students are enthralled with these riddles.  But, I also found that "average" students were intrigued and set their caps to solve them. 

It's about time, teachers, to offer you my FREE set of Valentine's Day Hink Pinks, Hinky Pinkies, and Hinkity Pinkities.  Here's a preview:

The answer to this Hink Pink is smart heart.

The answer to this Hinky Pinky is sandy candy.  

The answer to the Hinkity Pinkity below is valentine turpentine.

There are 24 cards in this FREE set.  Naturally, there is an answer key.  Did I mention that it is FREE?  You can retrieve your copy here.

I hope you enjoy Hink Pinks, et al as much as my students and I do.

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Back to School Time Savers -- Sponge Activities

No matter how carefully you plan your teaching day, there will inevitably be an awkward minute or two that needs filling.  It could be when you are waiting outside the music room for your "special," having arrived early because your class made it through the halls without having to stop for traffic or behavior control.  Maybe you find yourself with a few idle moments while waiting for all the classes to file into the auditorium for an assembly. Perhaps you lined up for lunch 2 minutes early.  For whatever reason and whenever it happens, do you have a plan for filling those moments?

Maximize those intervals with "sponge activities." You know, something that absorbs the time while doing what you have dedicated your life to -- exercising young brains.   

If you have been working on rhyming words, ask individuals to name a word that rhymes with ----. Give your class extra practice with counting and cardinality (per the CCSS) by asking them to count on or count backwards from an arbitrary number.  Reinforce whichever operation you are studying in math by tossing out some equations.  

Reinforcing concepts and facts is wonderful and worthwhile. But have you considered trying brain exercises?  

If you teach young children, a popular sponge activity is to clap and/or snap a pattern for your students to copy. Coincidentally, your charges have to be careful listeners to replicate your pattern. That's always a desirable goal.  

20 Questions and I Spy work well, especially if you are not in your classroom.  In our never ending pursuit of sight word recognition, you could institute "Spotlight Words."  To do this, turn out the lights, hand a large flashlight to one child, and ask him to shine the spotlight on a specific word wall word.  

If he spotlights the correct word, then he hands the flashlight to another student and directs her to find a different word wall word.  Play can continue as long as you wish.  This is my flashlight of choice.

Another sponge activity involves categories.  This can be related to content area subjects. For example, ask your students to name animals native to a rain forest, a desert, etc.  Other category ideas are foods you can eat raw, foods that start with "k," clothes you should NOT wear this time of year, a noun that names a place, verbs that describe what you are doing in P.E., a word with a suffix, an adjective, a 2 syllable word, a compound word, a country that starts with B, etc.  The longer you work with categories, the more fluent you become in flinging them at your students.  Simultaneously, your students will become more fluent in their thinking.

If you are a neophyte or simply trying to brush away the cobwebs from the summer, you may want to have some teaching aids handy.  My favorites and, more importantly, my students' favorites, are Hink Pinks, et al. and Triads.  Both of these word play activities can be made on cards that are handy to grab and/or carry in a pocket.  [BTW, I'm a big proponent of teacher tool belts for this.]  

Teacher tool belt

Imagine just pulling a card from your tool belt and instantly engaging your students' critical thinking.  

These are samples of Hink Pinks, Hinky Pinkies, and Hinkity Pinkities.  Currently, there are 23 Hink Pink products in my TPT Store that are ready to print and cut apart.  Place a stack in your tool belt and you are well armed for any fallow moment.  If you are not familiar with Hink Pinks, you can read about them here.

These are Triads cards.

Again, they are print ready to make life easier for you.  There are 8 triads units in my TPT Store.  If you are not familiar with Triads, read about them here.  Either of these activities will cause the cogs to start turning in your kiddos' brains and that should be your goal every day.
   

What are your favorite sponge activities?  Please leave some comments and/or links below.













Until next time...

Hink Pinks for Kinders

My followers surely know by now that I'm "the Hink Pink guru," having dozens of units of Hink Pinks, Hinky Pinkies, and Hinkity Pinkities in my teaching repository. I've even invented Hitinkity Pitinkities at the urging of my enrichment students. 

Recently, a lovely kindergarten teacher friend asked if I had resources for pre-readers. Indeed, I did not.   But, I have been inspired by her question. Thus, I take pleasure in . . .

Examine the picture while searching for a 2 word phrase that describes it.  The 2 words must rhyme and they can only have 1 syllable each.  Did you get it?  The answer is PINK DRINK.

Try these:

Obviously, 2 beach balls are pictured.  Note the green arrow.  It points to the smaller of the 2 balls.  Hence, the answer to this one is SMALL BALL.

It should be getting easier now.  After all, experience is the best teacher.  The answer to this one is BLUE SHOE.

Working with Hink Pinks has myriad benefits for students.  They offer fun word play and learning is always best when it's fun.  Hink Pinks challenge children to think critically and creatively.  They increase vocabulary and hone rhymes.  Although they may not know what a synonym is, your kiddos will quickly learn to think of words that mean the same thing.  And, Hink Pinks are even aligned with the CCSS.

I invite you to download my Freebie Hink Pinks for Kinders.   Introduce them to your students by solving ALL of them together, modeling your thinking as you do so. Hink Pinks can be tricky at first.  That's why it is key to work through several together.  Once your students get the hang of it, they will be hooked.  Then you can post a Hink Pink card at a center or use it for fast finishers.  Grab a card for a sponge activity or choose one each morning for an anchor activity.

Once your students are hooked, you may want to try these Hink Pink units for Kinders:

 

HP for Kinders I                             HP for Kinders II

G/T and Enrichment Differentiation

Do you find it taxing, daunting even, to provide challenges for your gifted and talented students?  Is differentiation difficult?  Do enrichment opportunities elude you?

If you answered "Yes" to any of these questions, then I have many gifts for you.

Because I am passionate about G/T, differentiation, and enrichment, I've been creating materials for these areas for more decades then I care to admit.  My experience with G/T and enrichment students ranges from teaching multi-age gifted students in a private school -- to creating district-wide programs for pull-out enrichment -- to providing differentiated instruction in my heterogeneous classroom -- to instructing university students in graduate level gifted education courses.

Among the materials I create are language arts curricula combined with critical thinking and problem solving.  One of the most popular categories is Hink Pinks, Hinky Pinkies, Hinkity Pinkities, and Hitinkity Pitinkities.  Kiddos love them because they are learning disguised as fun. Teachers can't get enough of them because they really make students think.

You can unwrap a FREE gift of these ridiculously fun and addictive word riddles by clicking here.  Currently, there are 3 more FREE Hink Pink, et al. products that you can grab by going here.  Try them; I think you'll like them.

What the Teacher Said

Having been a teacher for more than 30 years, I've said a lot.  But that's not what this post is about.  This post is about what teachers have said about my products.

My teaching passions are many, but chief among them are materials that promote critical thinking and problem solving.  My appetite for this was first whetted wwwaaaaayyyyy back in my second year of teaching when I attended a state conference on gifted education.  It was there that I was first introduced to the  critical thinking activity, Hink Pinks, and their cousins, Hinky Pinkies and Hinkity Pinkities.  

 My enthusiasm for Hink Pinks et al. has never waned.  Indeed, I have used them with every class from 1st grade to 5th. It takes a little more prompting to get 1st graders to combine syllable constraints with synonyms, but there is nothing more rewarding than seeing that "lightbulb moment" when a little one gets it.

You can see examples of my Hink Pinks et al. by going here.  Several of them are free! If you try them, I think you will like them. But, you don't have to take my word for it.  Here's what the teachers said:

If you would like to check out my Hink Pink et al. products, click here.  By the way, they are CCSS aligned.

Easter Hink Pinks Freebie

Eggs-actly what you need for spring -- a fun, challenging, activity that develops vocabulary, practices parts of speech, eggs-ercises synonyms and rimes, all while using Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS).  I'm not eggs-aggerating; I'm talking about Easter Hink Pinks & Hinky Pinkies.   

If you're not familiar with Hink Pinks, you are in for some egg-citement! Hink Pinks are riddles for which the answer must be a pair of rhyming words with just 1 syllable in each word (hink & pink each have just 1 syllable).  Similarly, Hinky Pinkies are riddles with rhyming word pair answers, but each answer word must have 2 syllables (Hinky & Pinky have 2 syllables each).  For example:      

 

                      

Hink Pink clue: superior bird home  

Hink Pink answer: best nest             

Both you and your students will be egg-cited about learning when it’s this fun!  

These riddles and their cousins, Hinkity Pinkities, have been staples in G/T education for decades.  They eggs-ercise  brain muscles your students didn't know they had.  As a teacher, I eggs-perience great satisfaction when I witness that "AHA!" moment in a student.  

The best way to understand Hink Pinks & Hinky Pinkies is to try them for yourself.  So, try these:

                                            

                                           

   

If you're not eggs-actly sure if you solved them, check back tomorrow for the answers. Until then, I hope you have an egg-cellent weekend.

                     

Groundhog Day 4.0

This is the last post about Groundhog Day, I promise.  Words and word play are really my thing.  I love enticing and intriguing my students to increase their vocabulary through fun activities.  My students and I just love Hink Pinks, Hinky Pinkies, & Hinkity Pinkities.

If you've never encountered Hink Pinks, etc., you are in for a treat. Hink Pinks are rhyming answers to riddles. The answer is a Hink Pink if both answer words are supposed to be just one syllable. If the riddle calls for 2 syllables in each answer word, it's called a Hinky Pinky. You've probably already figured out that 3 syllable answers are Hinkity Pinkities. Several years ago, my enrichment students begged to know what a 4 syllable answer would be called. Never having encountered one, I let them name such pairs. Voila! Hitinkity Pitinkities were born. Then, of course, I had to quickly create some riddles with 4 syllable answers. Good brain exercise for me!

I have created some Hink Pinks, etc. especially for Groundhog Day.  You are invited to try them with your class. Here are a few to get you started:

I've designed my clues to be on cards that I can use at a literacy center or at a large or small group meeting.  Note that the "Hink Pink" logo appears on the cards so that students know what number of syllables to be thinking about. In the above examples, the answer to #1 is deep sleep. #2 is bright light. Pretty fun, huh?

Now try Hinky Pinkies and Hinkity Pinkities. (Sorry, no 4 syllable answers for this holiday.)

The answer to #9 is rehide inside. Muddy buddy is the solution to #10.  

#17 is prediction description, although I would also accept prediction depiction. Furrow burrow is the answer to the last one.  

Your students will love working on vocabulary, parts of speech, synonyms, rimes, making inferences, and interpreting data when they are disguised as fun. Mine clamor for more everyday.  

You are welcome to download this freebie here. If you visit my store, you will see that I'm a bit obsessed with these word riddles. There are currently 24 more Hink Pink products listed here. All of these products bear the same logos on the cards and are print ready. I recommend copying them on card stock and laminating them before cutting them apart. Then you will have ready-made fun for years to come.  Enjoy!

For economy, you may be interested in these bundles: