Last year I was cleaning my basement getting ready for our annual garage sale and came across all those old Disney movies housed in VHS cases. Although our VHS player is long gone and the kids are now into their late teens and twenties, parting with those old movies was pretty difficult. I can’t tell you how many times I watched Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast- I can still sing many of those songs years later. While I was looking at that old stack of tapes, I was trying to think of ideas for re-purposing the case and it hit me! They would make ideal storage containers for activities! Here’s the vision:
The step- by-step directions for the activity is placed on the left side of the cover and the materials for the activity on the right. How simple, right? I was a tad obsessed with the concept so I created 17 Activities on the Go! activities to address phonemic awareness, phonics and sight words. Each activity is available as a single product or is contained in a grade-level bundle. The Activities on the Go! for Rhyme contains 32 colorful rhyming pictures.
The Make, Take & Teach Activities on the Go! is available through my online Teachers Pay Teachers store or through the Make, Take & Teach website.
The other Pre-K/Kindergarten early phonemic awareness activity that fits so nicely in the VHS case is the Activities on the Go! Syllables. When you download this activity you’ll receive 40 pictures for sorting words by 1-, 2- and 3- syllables.
So, now for my Kindergarten and First Grade friends, I created the Activities on the Go! Blending activity. The race car activity has been so popular and the kids just love practicing blending sounds into words while driving their race car below the letters. It’s amazing how such a simple activity can keep their interest.
This activity contains 48 tracks for practicing the skill of blending.
This activity is available in my online Teachers Pay Teachers store or through the Make, Take & Teach website.
The final phonemic awareness activity developed for our Kinder and First Grade friends is the Activities on the Go! for Segmentation. When you download this activity you’ll receive 48 pictures for sorting by 2-, 3-, 4- and 5-phoneme words. You can easily differentiate this activity by limiting the number of phonemes you wish your students to practice.
If you like the Activities on the Go! concept, you may want to consider purchasing the activities in the grade-level bundles. Set 1 is ideal for Pre K/Kindergarten as it contains early phonemic awareness skills and beginning phonics skills.
The Activities on the Go! Set 1 is available through my online Teachers Pay Teachers store or through the Make, Take & Teach website.
Bundle 2 is ideal for practicing skills introduced mid- to end of Kindergarten and First Grade.
This activity is also available through my TpT store or through the Make, Take & Teach website
So if you don’t have old Disney movies still in boxes in the basement of your house, old VHS cases can be found in almost every second hand shop. Here we hit the jackpot at our local Habitat for Humanity store. Old movies can also be found on Ebay. The activities can also be stored in baggies or other containers.
Just a little hint- there are a few different types of VHS containers- the containers that store the Disney movies work best as the insides are flat and the activities fit nicely.
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