Resources We Love - Giveaway!!!



Hi Everyone!  Thanks so much for hopping around to discover some of our **favorite** resources in our classroom!  I am super excited to tell you all about THE BEST activity for both movement and learning in my classroom!

A dear friend from my college days { UC Santa Barbara!  Go Gauchos! } has developed a fantastic game that brings his three loves together...learning, physical activity, and teamwork!  As Joe was describing his "athletic brain builder" to me, I was getting super excited and I couldn't wait to try it with my students.  I am a die-hard GoNoodle fan { MooseTube is my jam!  Fried ham anyone?! } and I love incorporating movement into my lessons.

With the motto: Play. Hustle. Learn. I knew his game Smartopotamus was perfect for my classroom.



Smartopotamus comes with 80 balls covered with letters for my kiddos to use to spell all sorts of words on the white mats based on the categories from the card decks.  I also make up my own categories based on our learning objectives that week.  The deck categories get more advanced as you go down the list, so even our big 5th grade buddies are challenged, easily adaptable for any age.



The very first time I played it, I knew it was a hit.  My students ran like the wind to get as many tennis balls as they could gather and bring them back to their team to start forming their words.





Here's one group working together to brainstorm words that fit my given categories and then find the letters to spell their chosen words correctly on the mat.  Lots of peer editing going on...woo hoo!




Here's what I asked them to find:
     1.  Something cold
     2.  The opposite of something cold
     3.  A verb
     4.  A proper noun
     5.  A pronoun

I'm obviously sneaking in a grammar review, and they loved the challenge of working together to make their words as much as they did running around to collect the balls.



Smartopotamus comes with 18 creative ways for students to work as a team to collect the balls for a quick brain brain or a full-on PE workout if you want.  I can make the activity as short or long as I need.  Our favorite game this year is Soccer Madness since so many of my little kiddos claim to be soccer stars!

I've even used this game indoors in my word work station. I made sure to clearly teach my expectations (no flying tennis balls around our room!) and luckily we haven't had any issues so far.  Whew! My kiddos love having different textures and objects with which to work on spellling, grammar, vocabulary, and basically anything word work related.

Here's a quick video telling more about Smartopotamus.


Enter the code: happyhippo  at Smartopotamus.com to receive 40% off.  

OR...to win a *FREE* Smartopotamus game of your own, enter the 1st rafflecopter below.  It sells for $350 {thank goodness for my PTA funds}, so be sure to enter below to win yours absolutely free!

a Rafflecopter giveaway



To win the $100 Target gift card for the Blog Hop, 
be sure to complete all of the entries below in this 2nd rafflecopter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Click {here} to hop to our next blogger, The Elementary Darling



Best of Luck!


6 comments:

  1. This looks like such a fun game! Thanks for sharing! Susie

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  2. What a fun way to learn! Great game...I must have it :) Thanks for sharing!

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  3. This game looks like a blast! I've never seen or heard of it before either.

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  4. OMG! That looks super fun! What a great idea!!

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  5. What a nice idea and I can say that they had fun. Glad to see your post. Thank you and keep sharing. What a giveaway! Cheers!

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  6. What a giveaway! I am impressed with your idea. Congrats!

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