How to Use Pop-Its to Teach Math and Literacy Skills
If you don’t know what a pop-it is, you might be living under a rock! Pop-its are a fidget that have restored my faith in kids' abilities to play with something other than technology. They are silicone fidgets made to imitate popping of plastic bubble wrap. They come in all shapes and sizes, colors, characters, and even purses now! I’ve seen them around for awhile and even had a few in my Autism Program when Pop-its first came out. Then, I used them for their original purpose: fidgeting, staying focused, working through excess energy, etc. But now, I use them in a completely different way!
In my new program, I continued using pop-its in my small groups for students who were fidgety and needed support to help them stay seated and focused during lessons. I began to realize the magical pull these fidgets had on kids and started seeing fidgets with letters and numbers. I thought that was innovative and began integrating some different pop-it’s into my learning activities.
The first time I used the pop-it was for a sight words game. I found a pop-it, which my students now affectionately refer to as “Band-Aid Pop-it”, because it is in the similar shape of a band-aid with a smooth square in the middle to roll dice on. Then, separate ends for two players. I paired this pop-it with sight words and CVC words. After that, I just made up some rules. Here is an example of the first pop-it game game my students and I made up:
Pick a sight word or CVC word card
Say the word
Sound out the sounds
1 pop for saying the correct word
1 pop for EACH sound
Example: student draws the word “can”, says it correctly, says the sounds /c/-/a/-/n/, gets to pop 4 bubbles on their end of the fidget.
My students began to LOVE this game and started asking for it daily. Since I only see these angels for 30 minutes a day, I couldn’t make it happen every day but I do try to let them play at least weekly. Each week, they always change up how it is played! The best part about fidget games is that there are no hard and fast rules. The rules can be changed each time to meet the needs of the kids. Yalk about easy and fun differentiation. It’s even more fun when students discuss and talk about what rules they want and how they want to play.
More recently, I wanted to create something they could work on independently when I’m out of the building, need to assess another student, or for them to work on at home or in their regular classroom. So, I created pop-it task cards for literacy and math. While I only teach literacy, I saw how fun this activity could also be for math. Currently, my pop-it task cards come in CVC words, high frequency words, letter and number identification, and basic math problems. These have been a lifesaver for sub plans and even for filling that last 5 minutes of our session when we finish our other activities early.
There is no right or wrong way to use pop-its (or any toy) in learning. Using toys for learning increases engagement.
We know when our students are engaged, the likelihood of them retaining information is MUCH higher than if we were simply doing a paper-pencil task.
Have you been using pop-its in the classroom? Drop a comment down below and share how you have used them!
