Sparkle-a spelling game

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.

Growing Up Ladybug and How to Become a Butterfly are both by Stepanka Sekaninova and illustrated by Linh Dao, and they came out at the same time and are on similar themes, so let’s look at them together.

Growing Up Ladybug is narrated by Mariella, a seven-spot ladybug. She talks about the parts of a ladybug, where they live, different kinds of ladybugs, why humans love them, their defenses against predators and the life cycle of a ladybug.

The drawings are cute if not always scientifically accurate, it’s not in such a way that’s likely to confuse kids (who probably already know that ladybug mamas don’t push their larval babies around in strollers, for instance.

It’s a good general description of the life cycle of a lady bug and why we like having them around.

About the book: 32 pages, hardcover. Published 2026 by Albatross Media. Suggested retail price $16.95.

Similarly, How to Become a Butterfly covers the life cycle of a butterfly, starting with caterpillars eating burning nettle leaves. (Here Amanda is the narrator.) The book talks about a few of the more than 18,000 daytime butterflies in the world as well as other creatures that live in the meadow (there’s that ladybug again, along with crickets, bees and other bugs).

It also covers some of the enemies of caterpillars like wasps and spiders, and the defenses that caterpillars use to try to prevent being eaten. It illustrates how caterpillars grow and change as they molt and prepare to pupate, and what a caterpillar looks like before and while it is forming its chrysalis. And while the book uses the word metamorphasis it doesn’t really talk about what happens between the caterpillar forming a chrysalis and the butterfly hatching.

This butterfly is a peacock butterfly, and once it hatches the book covers the parts of a butterfly and the life cycle. It also talks about nocturnal moths (though it says nocturnal butterflies are “usually called moths” when moths are actually a different species) and what butterflies do at night.

I’m maybe a little hard on this book because my daughter is a butterfly expert from way back, but it is still cute and good for the very basic basics of the butterfly life cycle.

Both books would be fun additions to your bookshelf for younger kids starting to learn about different animals or who have an interest in insects.

About the book: 32 pages, hardcover. Published 2026 by Albatross Media. Suggested retail price $16.95.

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