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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New Year Idea: Think With Hink Pinks!

Happy New Year! It's officially a new year, which is a perfect time to blog about something I love, love, love!

Are you familiar with the following:

Hink Pinks

Hinky Pinkies

Hinkity Pinkities

If you've answered no, then you have been missing out! But don't worry, I'm about to save you!! 

If you've answered yes, then it is my hope that you will have access to even more wonderful resources after reading this blog. 

I was introduced to Hink Pinks 8 years ago. The first school I taught in was a Responsive School, filled with Responsive Classrooms. If you don't know all about Responsive Classrooms, you can find out more by going to the Responsive Classroom Website. When I became a part of this school community, I was sent to a week-long training, entitled Responsive Classroom I. It is still the best training I have ever been a part of, for that very reason, I was a part of the training. It wasn't a death-by-powerpoint or monotone teacher in Ferris Bueller type of instruction. It was engaging and fun! We moved around, we talked about ideas, we played games that made us comfortable with one another, and at the end of the week, I was sad to leave my training behind, but super excited to go back to the classroom with all of these new ideas and activities. 

Anyway, I could go on and on about RC forever, but I want to talk in this post about Hink Pinks because they are engaging, fun, and they encourage learning! Hooray for Hink Pinks! 

So, what exactly is a hink pink? Hink pinks are fun rhyming word riddles. The answer to the riddle is a pair of rhyming words. For example, one of my favorites is What do you call a large feline? The answer? A fat cat! Seriously, isn't that a blast of fun? 

Other examples are: 

Hink Pink: a paperback thief            Answer: a book crook

Hink Pink: an angry father               Answer: a mad dad

Now, I know you are wondering about the difference between hink pinks, hinky pinkies, and hinkity pinkies, so let me explain:

Hink Pinks are riddles that have a rhyming word pair answer and each word in the pair is one-syllable

Example: an enjoyable race is a fun run

Hinky Pinkies are riddles that have a rhyming word pair answer  and each word in the pair is two-syllables

Example: A friend who fell in the dirt is a muddy buddy

Hinkity Pinkities are riddles that have a rhyming word pair answer and each word in the pair is three-syllables

Example: A choosey sleuth would be a selective detective

I started using these daily this year because they are truly a fun and engaging way to work vocabulary practice in to students' daily learning and encourage critical thinking skills. As noted by Barbara Evans, who I consider to be the "Guru of Hink Pinks": 

Hink Pinks are riddles that help students learn to interpret data, make inferences, draw conclusions, and analyze new information. All the while, they are working with vocabulary, synonyms, definitions, parts of speech, and honing rimes. What could be better than a fun way to work with Bloom’s Taxonomy? 

I couldn't have said it better myself! I post a daily Hink Pink, starting the year with just Hink Pinks, and then slowly introducing Hinky Pinkies as the students are ready. I put it up in the morning and students have all day to turn in their guess for a ticket. I created these to record their answers:

They place one guess per day in a basket and I choose a student to share the answer when they quietly line up to leave for the day (and I have the basket in my hand to avoid any "late" submissions). I have a lot of adults in my room throughout the day and even they partake in the daily guessing. You don't want to know what happens if I forget to post one! It's the first thing I hear about :-) If only my students knew they were learning AND having fun! Last month, some of my students began creating their own hink pinks. They submit them to me on sticky notes at the end of each day for consideration not because I asked them to, but because they enjoy them and want to become creators of hink pinks. How amazing is it that they are challenging themselves to do that? Oh, Hink Pinks, you make a teacher smile ear to ear!

As my class starts the New Year, they are leaving Hink Pinks behind and starting to do only Hinky Pinkies! I am thinking that we'll tackle the Hinkity Pinkities in the spring, though some of them are challenging even for me! I'm looking forward to seeing how excited they are when they see a Hinky Pinky on the board January 2nd and know they have "graduated" to the next level :-)

There are various websites available with Hink Pinks if you simply Google it, but my go-to for Hink Pinks has been Barbara Evans. You can view her Hink Pinks in her store at Barbara Evans TpT. She has a ton of sets at really reasonable prices. She also has a couple of freebies listed right now that you could use for the February holidays:

Groundhog Day Hink Pink Freebie

Valentine's Day Hink Pink Freebie

I hope that you will give Hink Pinks a try in your classroom and find the educational value in them as well. They have definitely become a staple in my classroom, and even a fun discussion piece amongst adults. For kicks, ask your spouse or friends to solve your daily hink pink! Here's a few to think about:

Hink Pink: What do you call sugary paws?

Hinky Pinky: What do you call a fake horse?

Hinkity Pinkity: What do you call a conversation amongst drums?

Enjoy!

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