Friday, February 28, 2014

My Favorite Finds #1

Getting kids who struggle with math and reading to be excited about doing math and reading is no easy task! So when I find something that they are over the moon excited about, it needs to be shared!  I am calling this series "My Favorite Finds". All of this excitement was made possible by Melissa at Pink Cat Studio on TPT! I recently purchased her Pop and Drop Games Bundle. I am so glad that I did! You can check it out
here. There are so many cute games in this bundle. Today we used the party balloon version.


Here is how the game looked while we were playing on my SMART Board. You don't have to have a SMART Board to play-- a computer and projector could work, too. I divided my kiddos into 5 teams. I love the cooperative learning flexibility. My larger RtI groups were in five groups of three. My smallest group had four kids all competing on their own.

My favorite feature is that there are no questions included. You can use this for ANYTHING!  We needed a fun way to review 2 digit subtraction. So, that is what I chose. I picked problems off of an old worksheet and called them out. The kids had to record the problem on their dry erase board, decide whether or not to regroup, and solve it.



The best part is when they got the correct answer, I clicked the slingshot for their character. It launches the animal up. It pops a balloon and parachutes back down. They nutted up over this!
The first character to pop all of the balloons spins around, receives a cheer, and gets a star over its head. 

I hope you will check this out! She also has a free version that you can download and try for yourself. Click here to see that sample. I actually had one boy say to me, "Can we play this again tomorrow?" I said, "Tomorrow is Saturday, Sweetie." He replied, "Can I come here on Saturday to play this again?"  See! This one is a keeper for sure! 



4 comments:

  1. Jenn, it was so fun to read about how you used the game with your students! And how adorable that your student wanted to play on Saturday, that just made my day!! Thank you so much for blogging about my game!
    Smiles,
    Melissa

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    1. Thanks for letting me share your wonderful work on my new blog! I hope that other people will check out this great product. It really does have such possibilities! :)
      Jenn

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  2. This looks great. Yes, I'm checking out the free version right now and potentially adding the paid version to my wish list. I love open ended files such as these as I can use it with all different sorts of skills and tasks. Maybe even as a behavior incentive since I have 5 student tables in my room. :) Every time I "catch" a table with exemplary behavior they earn a balloon pop.

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    1. Thanks for sharing your idea! I didn't even consider the behavior management incentive possibility!. That is a great idea! It could be like Class Dojo but with more animation and sound! All you would need to do is leave the PowerPoint running on the tab bar. Awesome!

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