Magic Spoons

Why hello there my fellow blogger buddies!

Were you wondering if I fell off the face of the Earth?  If I did not, in fact, survive the madness of the holiday season?  If a pack of rabid kindergarteners ate me alive??!!  DON'T FRET!!  I'm back. :)

Not only am I back, but I have a great little somethin' to share!  Now, let me first just say that this is in no way my idea. Nope. Negative.  All the credit for this idea goes to one of my fellow kinder teachers, who got it from another kinder teacher, who . . .well, you get the idea.  Not original, but just one that I thought ought to be shared.

So this little phonemic awareness activity is called Magic Spoons.  Basically, in order to help children with sounding out words, even those pesky nonsense words, you take a pack of spoons and on each spoon write a consonant. (For the letter Q you write a "qu" combo - because those two are always together.)  These will be used as the initial consonants of the words the students will be reading. Then, students practice with one spoon at a time adding the first letter to various different word family endings.  As the Magic Spoon moves from word ending to word ending . . . POOF!  A new word appears!  Magic.

When my teacher friends were sharing this idea with me, I immediately envisioned shiny, glittering, golden spoons that were oh-so-magical.  So, when it came time to make my OWN Magic Spoons, I had to track down . . . you guessed it . . . golden spoons.  (The power is in the golden-ness, right?)

Anywho, I found these packs of golden spoons at Party City for cheap (AND was able to walk out of there with ONLY the spoons - yay for self control!).

Next, I wrote on my spoons.  (Best kindergarten printing!!)

Finally, I created three sheets to use with my magic spoons.   On the left is a sheet of two letter word family endings, the middle sheet is three letter word family endings, and the final sheet is ONLY consonant letters.  My plan with that sheet is to then create a second set of magic spoons where the word family ending is on the spoon.  Are you following all of this?

For a PDF file of these three sheets, click on the image below. (I plan to copy each sheet on a different color of cardstock and laminate for durability . . . and for protection from all the magic-ness!)

But wait, there's more!  If you would like to use this idea in a whole group setting, fear not!  I plan to (in all of my spare time . . . whenever that may be) get large wooden spoons to use to get the whole class involved at once!  Gold spray paint . . .here I come! 

Anyway, I would love to hear about if and how you use Magic Spoons in YOUR classroom! Or maybe you yourself are the inventor of this great idea . . .in which case, thanks!

Happy teaching this week! 

Lindsay