Carpet Time For Young Learners

In my multi-level, elementary classroom carpet time is one of the most important times of our day. Carpet time allows me to see my kids demonstrate whatever concepts we are working on and allows positive learning interaction between my students.

I design my carpet time around language arts and math. My language arts concentration is on phonics and spelling. Math encompasses a variety of topics, especially whatever I have noticed my kids having difficulty with. Our carpet time usually lasts approximately 45 minutes to an hour focusing on these topics and story time. I get the kids moving around so it helps them learn!

We play all kinds of games at our carpet time, but my kids have several that they are more partial to. These games are easy to create, but engage the kids and allow me to quickly assess who is struggling and who is breezing along.

One of the games they love is called ‘Monster, Monster.’ This game focuses on sight words and is played like ‘Doggie, Doggie, Where’s Your Bone?’ My class of second graders focuses on twelve sight words a week. I take each sight word and write it on a monster shaped die cut and laminate it. I choose one person to ‘hide’ and then pass out five to seven monster cards to other kids who then sit on the cards. We call the monster to come out and find his friends to play. That child then has to choose the other kids who are sitting on the sight words. When all the sight words have been found, the kids read the cards they were sitting on, hand the cards to the ‘monster’ then the monster reads them to me. My kids love this game and it allows me to see who needs help with sight words.

Another game we play focuses on alphabetical order. Once again I use our monster sight word cards. I hand five out to each child. We review what alphabetical order is and we start collecting cards going through our ABCs. I have the kids stand up when they have a card that starts with that letter and they have to read the word to me. I will also do a variation of this game by handing out cards that start with the same letter and have the kids alphabetize to the second and third letter. This is a fast moving game and once again it helps me assess several skills at once.

One of the math games we play focuses on place value. I hand out cards that have multi-digit numbers on them with one of the numbers underlined. I will choose one student to be the ‘caller.’  They get to pull cards out of a bucket that have place values written on them from ones to millions. When the caller calls out the place value, the kids who have an underlined number in that place stand up and read the number to the caller. The caller has to determine if the place value is correct and if the number is being read correctly. Once again, I get to sit back and watch who needs to work on what concept.

Finally, one of the math games that we play focuses on money. I have one baggy of money for each child in random amounts that I pass out. I also have cards that have different amounts written on them and cards with each child’s name and a plastic pig-shaped piggy bank. I will draw a name and a card with an amount on it. That child has to ‘pay our pig’ that amount of money out of their baggy. We do several rounds of this game and when kids start getting low on money in their baggy, the count the remaining amount and put it in the pig.

Since my kids are moving around and not required to sit still during our carpet time, they don’t get bored with it and are ready to settle in when story time comes around. I also get a good look at what kids need to focus on which concepts, or if I need to bump my teaching up a notch. It’s a win-win!

How do you make good use out of your carpet time?