Saving Time: Repurposing What I Already Have

Who has time to put together one more elaborate activity before the Holidays?  Not me!  I'm going to show you how you can repurpose something you probably already have and make a useful activity that can be used with multiple kids.  Let me introduce Lift-the-Flap Presents!

I had a few extra present cards left from making Clothespin Christmas Surprises and found a great way to turn them into  something fun and useful.

First, I printed off a page of picture cards.  This one happens to target the /k/ sound.  I put it in a plastic page protector.

Starting at the bottom of the page, I taped a present to the page protector, positioning it over the top of one of the squares from the picture card set.  I put tape along the upper edge only, so the present card becomes a flap to lift.

I continued to tape the presents over each square, filling the rows from bottom to top.  That's it!  It's ready to be used!

Here's the great thing:  you can store multiple pages of picture cards in the same page protector.  You just need to make sure that the one you need is on the top of the stack!  So, since the presents are taped to the page protector and not the actual page of picture cards, you can use this activity with a child working on /k/ in one session, and then quickly change it to work for a child working on /s/.  Just find the page you need and slip it in!  Easy, huh?

Of course it helps if you use sets of picture cards that all come from the same source so the grids are the same size.  I use the ones I created on lessonpix.com.  If you don't know about LessonPix, you should.  You can create your own sets of picture cards and other materials in minutes.  You choose the targets based on the sound and position in words, click a button, and then download your materials directly to your computer to save and use whenever you need them.  So easy and SO COOL!

I'll be using this for articulation for sure, but I'll probably find other ways to use it, too.  How about for irregular plurals or other grammar targets?  How about for following directions? "Open the green gift in the bottom row."  Or, "After you open a red gift, open a pink one."  How about visual memory?  Have them open one row of gifts, name them, cover them back up and then see if they can tell you what the three gifts were.  Oooh, I like that idea.  I might do this with Christmas vocabulary!  I know, I'll use the sheet of cookies from Santa's Cookie Slam! Game!!!

Wow, THAT was easy!  Especially since I used the same grid template to create both the presents and the cookies.  No resizing necessary!  I actually tried this with a fourth grader and it worked great.  This is what we did.  First, I had her open one vertical row of three presents, name them, close them, and then say the names of the three presents.  We repeated the sequence for the remaining three rows.  To make it more difficult, I added a 5 second delay between the time she closed the flaps and telling the names of the gifts.  After two rounds of opening vertical rows, we moved on to opening horizontal rows.

I'll bet you could come up with some ways to use this idea, too.  Will you please share?