How Fidget Poppers Can Help Students Master Phonemic Awareness

How can pop its help students master phonemic awareness?

What are “Pop Its” and why are kids obsessed with them?

Sometimes called fidget poppers, they are molded plastic bubble toys that are like reusable bubble wrap – a simple colorful toy made of plastic and silicone that comes in many sizes and shapes.

Why do kids (and others) get obsessed with them? They are simple, but powerful. They are soothing and they help calm students and help them focus. They also are kind of relaxing!

The Irish Examiner states that a benefit of poppers are that they are, “Sensory toys encourage play that engages one, two or all of our senses: sight, touch, smell, taste, hearing, movement and balance”

How can I harness their power instead of having kids distracted?

I have three blog posts with ideas for you here. But some quick ideas on how to use them for academic purposes:

Use an A-Z labeled pop it for spelling practice
Have students write an opinion piece on whether pop its should be allowed in class (keep reading for a related freebie!)
Use a giant 10×10 fidget popper for a hundred grid. Label the bubbles 1-100 or buy one already labeled!
Practice patterns; for ex. students might pop say three bubbles, leave 3 unpopped, then do 2 and 2, and ask a classmate to predict what should be popped next and pop them!
Count syllables by popping, which is another way to help students master phonemic awareness!
See the blog posts for more ideas!

TPT Resources: Pop it Task Cards

What are they and how do the Pop it Phonics Task Cards work?

Make it easy for yourself and save tons of time by grabbing already made activities and resources from Teachers Pay Teachers. This is an easy peasy way to support struggling readers in the area of phonics and help them master phonemic awareness, two major aspects of the Science of Reading!

Popping each sound can help students develop letter sound connections and identify and practice the phonemic awareness skills of blending and segmenting sounds and words. This really helps to engage learners in reading lessons! They also can work on phonics skills by writing the words on a record sheet if you prefer.

There are three kinds of task cards included. First, check out this image from the CVC Words preview to see the first two. Task card type one has the word on it and an image, such as a mop. Students then tap out each sound on the pop it. Task card type two, without the word on it shows an image, such as a hat. Students look at the image, determine the word, and pop out the phonemes on the popper.

They are also in both color and black and white depending on your printing options.

In this other picture you can see an example of the third type of task card, with which students tap out the word pictured and either shade in the number of phonemes on the task card (if you laminated it) or do so on the record sheet. An extension for more words students can pop out is pictured too.

All the resources, whether CVC words, digraphs, or vowel teams include these three types of task cards!

Lets’ take a peek at a few images from the Pop it Phonics Bundle so you can get a better idea. The bundle includes:

CVC words
Digraphs and bonus letters f, l, s, z
Consonant blends
Silent e syllables and r contorlled vowels
Diphthongs oi, oy, ou, ow
Vowel teams
Glued/welded sounds am, an, all
Glued sounds with ng and nk

Samples of the consonant digraph activities:

Pop it phonics teaching consonant digraphs in use 2

Pop it phonics teaching consonant digraphs recording sheet

Examples of the CVC task card set!

Pop it phonics CVC words how many sounds

Five Star Reviews

One of the happy teachers who grabbed it says, “I grabbed these to plan for my reading/ELA centers for our return from winter break and I think it will be super fun and engaging since my kids love using pop its.”

Another says, “My students love popits so it is great to be able to incorporate them into their learning!”

Click on the cover below if you are ready to give the bundle of pop it resources a try!

If you want just one or two pop it resources, c lick here to look at the bundle and click this link to see which resources you can buy individually!

What are the objectives?

There are three different types of task cards: for the “count the sounds (phonemes) task cards”, the objective is that students will be able to accurately count the sounds in a word. This is a great way to practice so students can master phonemic awareness skills.

For the task cards that give students a word to read, they will be able to see a word and “tap out” each sound and read the word correctly. They will identify each sound and pop a bubble for each.

For the final type of task card, students will see a picture of a common word, and be able to tap out the word, identifying each sound, and know how many sounds are in the word.

Keep reading for info on a pop it freebie!

Can I leave for a substitute?

Yes! Answer keys are included so it would make it easy for a sub or a para (teaching assistant) to correct work or give student feedback. You can also leave it at a center for independent work and if you want accountability, have students use the record sheets, which are included. And while you are absent, students will be working hard to master phonemic awareness.

Where to get them?

Amazon of course – the best price I have seen is 95 cents each here. Usually I see packs of 12 6×6 pop its for between $16-20 like this set. The Target Bullseye Playground and Walmart have them and you can check local gift shops, of course!

More Tips for Using Pop Its to Support Academics:

Each resource comes with a page of suggested extensions using Pop Its but here are some sneak peeks:

Cut pop its into 5×2 shapes (or buy them already made in that shape) and use for practice making a 10. You can also incoportate this resource.
Use a giant 10×10 fidget popper for the dice game roll to 100! This blog post has other ideas, too.
They are awesome for multiplication (and math in general) Check these two resources for info on how:

FREEBIE ALERT

Would you like to get a download of this printable, differentiated opinion writing prompt about fidget poppers that is already set up for you? Click to download it for free or on the image below! This will also get you into the RWR Insiders Club today (free, unsubscribe at any time of course)!