There are moments in the classroom of unexpected down time; an assembly is late, a guest speaker doesn’t show or recess is canceled. Other times, a teacher wants to give the students a reward for good behavior in the form of a game. One of my favorite activities for these moments is SPARKLE. When I first heard about it from my students, I thought they had made it up, but apparently it’s something that many classrooms play.
This is the way we play:
– Have all students sit on their desks.
-Using your spelling list, pick a word and ask a student to start spelling it
-Each student (in order) gives a letter of the word. If he or she picks a wrong letter, they have to sit back down in their chair.
-The word CANNOT be repeated by the teacher nor can any of the letters that the kids say-this guarantees that the students will pay attention even when it is not their turn!!
-after the last letter of the word is given, the next person says SPARKLE-again they can’t be prompted, they have to know that it is the end!!
-They can either Sparkle Up (which means they can pick anyone in the room who is in their chair to sit back on their desk) or Sparkle Down (both people on either side of them have to sit down in their chairs)
-Who ever is left sitting on their desk at the end is the winner!!
My kids would beg and beg to play it!! A great review game right before the Spelling Test as well!
Here’s another version of the same game.
My 2nd & 3rd graders loved this when I was teaching!