I'm in Love...With Triads!

And my husband, of course!

Earlier in the year, I blogged about Hink Pinks. They are fun, engaging, and my students always love them! They kinda make my classroom go 'round!

Well, my favorite Hink Pink creator is Barbara Evans who has a blog over at It's About Time, Teachers. When I blogged about her Hink Pinks, we had a chat about other fun word riddles that engage students and encourage critical thinking skills. That's when she introduced me to Triads. Here's a little info on Triads straight from Barbara:

"Combine critical thinking with vocabulary development and have fun doing it. Teach your students to use Bloom's upper level skills -- analysis, synthesis, and evaluation, with TRIADS. 

The challenge in this activity is to find 1 word that can be added to each of the triad words to make a well-known phrase or compound word. The common word may be added before or after the triad word. For example: add GRASS to the triad words blue, hopper, and crab to make blueGRASS, GRASShopper, and crabGRASS.

Triads are CCSS aligned. This is a great activity for a literacy center or enrichment. It could also be used as an anchor or sponge activity. Reproduce the cards on card stock, laminate, and use for years to come. Naturally, an answer key is included. 

My students love to do these together. You can almost see the cogs turning inside their heads! Be sure to check out my Triads II and III." 


Here's what they look like:



The common word here is stand because you can make the word kickstand, handstand, and headstand. 

Isn't that super duper fun? Don't you just want to solve more of these right now? When I first bought mine, my husband and I spent the evening going through them to see how many we could guess. Who says that the students get to have all the fun?

I have to be honest, my students loved Hink Pinks, but I think they were over the moon for Triads. It took them only a couple of tries before they demanded a daily one with their daily Hink Pink. Now, what teacher can say no to that? Well, not this one! I even made little Triad answer sheets. If you decide that you want to use Triads with your class this year (and with vocabulary building AND critical thinking, why wouldn't you?), then you can grab my adorable answer sheets here. Here's what they look like: 


I put them out with the daily Hink Pinks each morning and the students have all day to guess. Sharing the answer at the end of the day turned out to be a great way to settle my students down before dismissal. Warning: Students will all want to answer so it's a good idea to have some sort of system for choosing in place. My students would come in at 8:20am and by 8:25am someone would ask me, "Is anyone doing the Triad yet?" What can I say? They loved them! I can't wait to introduce them to this year's group in just a few short weeks! 

Barbara has a choice item in my giveaway #6 so be sure to enter here. You  can grab a free Triad or Hink Pink if you win! The giveaway is open until Friday night so get your entries in now! Barbara also has lots of Hink Pink freebies in her TpT store and there's one more day of the TpT sale. What a great time to stock up on her goodies!

I wonder what Barbara will have in store for me next? I can't wait to find out!




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