More Back To School Ideas: Another Fair Way To Pick Partners Continued

We’re “Pear Pairs!"

In the above article, I wrote a blog about fun and fair ways to pick partners.

I was diddling with homonyms and fooling around with the word pear and pair and thought making pears as puzzles would also be a fun way to pick a partner.

A bunch of alphabet, shape and number pears later, I had a 48-page packet! Click on the link to view/download Pear Pair Puzzles

This packet will be free for an entire year, then it will be updated and put in Diane's Dollar Deals in my TpT shop. Click on the link to pop on over.

Here's What To Do:

Run off the pears on yellow or green construction paper. Laminate the sheets.

Cut them out and then cut the puzzles apart.
Put the uppercase letters in one bag and the lowercase letters in another.
Explain to your students the homonym pears and pairs.
Make sure that you only use enough letters as you have children present.
Have ½ your students choose a puzzle piece from one bag and the other ½ choose from the other bag.
When everyone has a pear puzzle piece, have students go find their partner so they can make a pear pair!
This can simply be a game of who can make a pear pair the fastest as a fun review, or as a fun and fair way of choosing a partner for whatever activity you have planned.
Keep the pears in separate envelopes when not in use.
You can also use them as a Memory Match game, or as an independent matching game.
Make an extra set to send home with a struggling child, or make individual booklets and have students TRACE the letters and then take them home to make their own game.

I’ve given you a blank set for you to dream up other ways to use them.
There is a plain pear as well as one with a face on it.
You could make sets for compound words, or contractions.
Make up equations on one ½ and answers on the other.

Another fun “pear pair” is to make a personal one for each student.
This is perfect for younger students who need to learn how to recognize their name as a report card standard.
Glue a student’s school picture on the top and print their name on the bottom puzzle piece,
Scatter the pear pieces on the floor and have students find their photo and matching name as a fun “Name Game Pear-Pair”!

You can make a set with a color word on the bottom.
Run these pears off on that color of construction paper.
You can use these for your word wall or other color activities.

I’ve also made a set with a shape matched to a word.
These can be used to pick a partner if you are only using a few children. (6 or less.)
If you plan to use shape cards for partners, run them off on 4 different colors so that you will have 24 cards.
I’ve also made a cover for these, so you can run these sheets off and your students can make a shape puzzle booklet or a game of their own to take home.
This booklet is ideal to get some cutting practice in, as it’s only a few pages.
Instead of having a rectangular booklet like the letter or number booklet, have students cut out the pears. Seems perfect, as this is a “shape” booklet!
To give this booklet more pizzazz, have your students COLOR the shapes in rainbow colors and then TRACE the shape word in the matching color.
This is a fun way to teach the colors of the rainbow and review colors with your students at the same time you are reviewing shapes! (More bang for your “time” buck!)
There is also a set with dots and numbers and numbers and number-words.
I’ve also made covers if you want to run them off so that students can make their own booklet.
This is a great sequencing activity.
Students can also number the sets of circles, color them, put a smilie sticker in one of the dots on each page, or have fun using bingo dot markers at a center!
Run off just one pear number and have students use 2 bingo colors to show a math equation and then write it on the pear. i.e., The #9 pear has 4 pink bingo dots + 5 green bingo dots = 9 total bingo dots.
If you want to use numbers as pear pairs and you have 20-22 students, make a set of yellow and a set of green pears.
You can also use the number-word pear pairs as well and add a 3^rd color if you have more students than 22, such as a light yellow and a bright yellow, or a lime green and an emerald green.