Multisensory Monday: Morpheme Toss

While the end of winter is upon us, it’s not too late to enjoy some fun snow-related activities!

In this activity, students will be playing a relay time game where they toss a certain number of “snowballs” into a cup. This will help them remember the meaning of different number morphemes. You can also modify this activity to practice different concepts, such as multiplication facts!

Number morphemes, such as bi, quad, and oct, are bound to a word and tells us meaning related to a number. These are the focus of several lessons in Brainspring’s Structures® program, including lessons 1-20, 1-26, 1-32, and 1-33.

Materials:

• Plastic or Styrofoam cups
• Lots of cotton balls, marshmallows, or pieces of crumpled paper to act as snowballs
• A timer

How to Play:

Divide your students into teams.

Pair up two teams; one team will be the throwers and the other the counters.

Have each team line up into a row across from their opponent. Set a cup in front of each counter.

Starting at one end of the rows, tell the first pair of students a number morpheme. This will be the number of “snowballs” they have to get into the cup. After you announce the morpheme, start a timer to record how fast each team can complete the challenge.

Once the counter counts the correct number of “snowballs” that the thrower has made into the cup, they tell the next group the morpheme (“Bi means two!”) and wait to hear the next morpheme from you. This keeps going until you want it to end. I’ve found five to ten morphemes is best.

Once all the throwers have completed the different morphemes, you stop the timer. Begin it again after the teams have switched jobs. The fastest team wins!

Written by Tony Puente.

Tony is a Brainspring Tutor and Livestream Facilitator with Brainspring Educator Academy.

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