Love my Dollar Store

Who doesn't love the dollar store? I was giving an inservice class recently, with a colleague of mine. We decided that we would go to the dollar store, purchase a ton of items, and use them throughout our class. One afternoon my phone rang.

"I hit the mother-load", she shouted. She found the most amazing store. A TRUE dollar store. It seems like there are more five dollar stores out there. Have any of you found a great dollar store near you? Want to share?

Some of the best things I have found at the $$ store are 24 piece puzzles. I found great Dora The Explorer and Angry Birds puzzles. I use them as reinforcement for many of my lessons. I created a pre-made template, the size of the finished puzzle, and I place it on the table. Each student is given two sets of pieces.  The first set consists of the corners and straight sides. The second set has the inside pieces. I've noticed that so many children have no idea how to put a puzzle together. This is a good opportunity to teach them some strategies. After each child takes a turn answering whatever questions you have planned for them, they get a chance to put a puzzle piece down on the table. After they complete the entire frame, then you can hand out the inside pieces. It is motivating, and easy to implement with any group. Enjoy!

 I used the Angry Birds puzzle today. Each child was working on the /r/ sound in phrases. There were 2 words per phrase. They had to say 5 phrases correctly, before they were able to place a piece of the puzzle on the table. So, since it was a 24 piece puzzle and each child got 12 puzzle pieces, they had the opportunity to practice their /r/ sound 120 times!!        
                                                                       Not bad!















For this lesson, I gave the puzzle pieces out as reinforcement for correct answers. We used the Problem Solving worksheets from Therasimplicity.com (another awesome website). Each child had to state whether or not they thought there was a problem in the picture. If there was a problem, they had to state the problem, then give 1 possible cause for the problem. The next student had to state another possible cause. Then, they were asked to explain why it was a problem and tell what they could have done to avoid the problem in the first place. After each student received at least 1 puzzle piece, they were able to put it on the table. 

So meaningful~ so motivating~ so much fun.