Grammar Football

So when all else fails....play ball!

One of my students throwing for a touch down in the hallway!

Okay, so this was an activity I did for my schools family reading night that I decided to do with my 5th graders the following day. I was pitching a book called: Kid Owner. This book is published through Scholastic and is about a kid in middle school who ends up owning the Dallas Cowboys because his father passes away. This book  deals with responsibility and trust, as this young teen deals with juggling his everyday life and life of an owner of an NFL team.

To inspire reading and tie in the book, I created a classroom board game of sorts. Students and families alike designed their football playing piece. This was a blank clip art football helmet that I found online, but you could have it be a football, a player, even real action figures. After they designed their piece they had to put them on the field goal line. I basically went to dollar tree which had football table cloths and laid it flat on a table and a desk. The students and parents worked together to get their football helmet down the field toward the opposite goal line. They got to move their piece based on the how they answer the questions posted around the classroom. I found task cards that had a "football" theme for reading night. They focused on subject and predicate as well as identifying the main idea of a passage, but you can choose any task cards you would like. Once parents and students found the task card, read it, and came up with their answer they would tell me and if they were right I would let them know so they can move their piece down the field. If they got it wrong they had to go back to the task card and try again. The amount of competition that came out was fun to watch. Some families with older students competed against each other,  Mom vs. daughter, while younger students worked with mom and dad to figure it out together. It was a fun experience for all. When they got to the end they got three tries to throw a giant inflatable football through an equally giant inflatable field goal. Kids and parents alike loved it! Best of all it was the best $10 investment I ever made!

This lesson was a new one I added to my class this year but I definitely plan to incorporate it into my class for years to come. It not only is educational, but engaging for students regardless of age. It would be a great, simple lesson to "kick off" the school year with and teach students how to play nice.

Linked below are some resources to help if you are interested in setting this lesson up for yourself:

 Inflatable Football and Goal (This one is $20, but I got mine on Walmart clearance so keep an eye out there too)

Table cloths (I got mine from Dollar Tree in the seasonal section but I also found these online)
Amazon Table Cloth

Walmart Table Cloth

Football Helmet

Teacher Pay Teacher's Search (Check out this link for lessons to tie with this activity)