Three Things {Build a Minion, Pete the Cat and Airjitzu}

I'm super excited about a new linky party that my friend Aileen Miracle has started!!!  It's called Three Things.  

Each week we'll be blogging about three things that we did with our students that really worked well in our classes.

So, here's a peek at three things that worked well and were SUPER fun in my classes last week.

First, with 5th grade we're reviewing fa so to make fa flashcard reading more fun, the class would read a pattern and then one student would come put a part on my brand-new "Build a Minion!"

I found this guy at Walmart this past August when my own two kids and I were visiting the toy section.  I knew I just had to have him to use as an incentive for flashcard reading.  He comes with two sets of goggles, two arms, two legs 3 mouths and a guitar.  I somehow, between my presentation in Amarillo earlier this month and the start of school, lost 2 of his mouths but we still have one so we made due.  The kids thought it was funny, especially one class that thought it was fun to put his arms where his legs went, his leg on his head and his mouth above his eyes.  Too fun and they did a great job reading!

Another new find this summer was my Pete the Cat Puppet on a Stick & Pen.  Really, who can't resist Pete?!  

My 1st graders used Pete (on a stick) to echo sing "Oh My, No More Pie" and then we transitioned into Pete telling little Pete (we called the big one Daddy Pete and the little one Pete's son) about Georgie Porgie Pudding Pie.  Daddy Pete would recite the chant in a low voice, little Pete would beg for daddy to tell it again (this was how the students learned the chant... also questions about the story being told).  Then, little Pete felt confident retelling the chant, and he said it in a high voice.  The students were then asked to say it like Daddy Pete and then again like Little Pete.  Then we mixed it up and Daddy and Little Pete tried to "trick" the first graders by switching between low and high voices.  This was a super fun way for them to review high and low and was a really great vocal warm-up towards the beginning of our lesson.

Speaking of vocal exploration and warm-ups, I was intrigued with this toy that my children bought at the Lego store with my husband this summer:

It's called an "Airjitzu"- it has a draw string that you pull.  The ninja in the capsule then flies up in the air and lands like a top.  I thought it would be fun for vocal exploration, so we tried it with my son's class.  I knew that I didn't want to use it with the littler kiddos, it's too sophisticated in getting it set up and I don't want to spend my class time putting together a toy.  So, this worked really well with my third graders.  Here's a little video of my son's best friend using it and his class following it with their voices.

It's a little hard in the previous video to see it work, this one didn't go as high but you can see how the Airjitzu works:

I hope that all of you who are back to school have an amazing week!!!  I hope to blog more often, at least once a week so if I don't blog before Sunday, I'll see you next week!