Farmer's Market Fun

One of my favorite Saturday morning activities is going to the local farmer's market. Fresh fruit and veggies have got to be one of the best parts of summer. Of course my farmer's market also sells lots of other not so healthy goodies (love the fresh croissants!).

Inspired by the farmer's market, I created a game for my students to play. This game is to practice counting syllables in words and I also snuck in a few math skills as well.





To play this partner game, students each take a basket (either one of the printable ones I included in the game or any little plastic basket you happen to have in your classroom-I know I have tons of little Target baskets!). Then students take turns picking fruit and veggies. Student take a card and count how many syllables the fruit/veggie on their card has. Students then earn one penny for each syllable that the word has (they put the pennies in their basket).

Once all of the produce has been picked, students count up their earnings. Finally, they spin the spinner to see if the person with more or less pennies in their farm basket wins. Simple, right?

I tested this game out on my summer school students expecting it to be a piece of cake-after all I'd spent tons of time with them practicing how to clap the syllables in words. However, students still found this game tricky because...apparently they don't eat very many fruits and veggies and had a hard time identifying what was on the game cards! Scary! I guess I should have made a junk food version!

After a quick nutrition lesson that reviewed the different fruit and veggies in the game, things went much more smoothly (the game cards also have words on them so that students can try to read the name of the fruit/veggie in the picture). It has even inspired me to try to create a farm stand in my dramatic play area this year (wouldn't that be a fun way to practice money counting practice and other math skills!).