Use A Quick and Engaging Guided Reading Game
This guided reading game is so fun to use in the first 5 minutes of guided reading. It should be quick and engaging to hold your student’s attention. You should get their brain warmed up for your guided reading lesson. I like it to be relatively the same every day so I don’t have to explain what we are doing. You can read about guided math using the same type of cards in this post.
The Guided Reading Warm-Up I Use
The guided reading warm-up I use is a game called Pop The Balloon. To play, each student in your group will get a card. They start at the bottom of the card and read the sounds/words to the top to “pop” the balloon. When they reach the top, they clap and say “POP!” This is not a necessary part, but it’s an extra special step that makes it more fun.
Why Do I Love This Warm-Up So Much?
If you have followed me for a while, then you’ve heard me talk about this warm-up before quite a few times! I love using it because of the repetition, the engagement, and how easily you can differentiate to meet each group. My kids always knew what to do when they came to my guided reading table. They would immediately grab a card and get to work. When they were done with the card, they would grab a new one. Once everyone in the class was settled into their centers, I would listen to the students read their cards.
What skills are included?
There are many different packs for phonics skills, including letter sounds, short vowels, long vowels, digraphs, blends, trigraphs, diphthongs, r-vowels, nonsense words, and prefixes/suffixes. Cards include both the sounds and words with the skill.
How To Make It Different
My students loved using the Target mini erasers for this warm-up! It also gave me an excuse to buy more mini erasers 😉 You can use cheap drink stirrers or the light-up wands from the Dollar Spot too!
Where To Find It
If you are interested in this fun game, there are a few different options. You can find each one listed separately here. You can also buy the small phonics bundle here, the sight word bundle here, or the big bundle with every Pop The Balloon ever created (math included) here.
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