Spot On

Spot On presents a challenging game for build-a-word and build-a-sentence activities. It is a vocabulary-focused learning game for promoting word recognition and spelling skills as well as students’ abilities to produce complete simple sentences. Besides being fun, it helps students get more familiar with common patterns associated with spoken English.

Words or letters on boxes are scrambled on an imaginary game board. The students are asked to glue these letters or words in the correct order to make a word or sentence. They will strengthen their movement skills and spatial awareness strategies to quickly navigate the game board and successfully create words by picking up boxes quickly and placing them on the appropriate spot. The teacher can select the preferred learning task. There can be a word unscramble task or the creation of complete simple sentences. The word un-scrambler lets the student practice some of the most common words in academic vocabulary words for grades K-4. Each word can consist of up to six letters.

When producing simple grammatically correct and meaningful sentences, students learn to recognize punctuation and capitalization prompts for declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory sentences. They also practice using basic sight words, (such as: we, I, she, he, run, will, by, can) that could appear on some boxes and can be used in sentences.

There is also a “non-academic” game called the “Tower of Hanoi” that improves students’ visual motor integration and executive functions. During this “Tower of Hanoi puzzle”, students must move three boxes from one spot over to a third spot keeping the same sequence of colors. They have the use of a second empty spot as scaffold. This is a problem solving challenge that is a brain teaser or logic puzzle. The teacher can also specify the number of questions, the duration for answering each question as well as the existence of game lives, thus adjusting the game to the teaching and learning needs of each individual student.

Are you ready to play this mind-bending game and quickly move around and place boxes in the correct order?

Supported goals in

Decode regularly spelled two-syllable words with long vowels.

Use sentence-level context as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.

Recognize the distinguishing features of a sentence (e.g., first word, capitalization, ending punctuation).

Produce simple, compound, and complex sentences.

Produce and expand complete sentences in shared language activities.

Decode multisyllable words.

Count forward beginning from a given number within the known sequence (instead of having to begin at 1).

Decode regularly spelled one-syllable words.

Order adjectives within sentences according to conventional patterns (e.g., a small red bag rather than a red small bag).

Count to 120, starting at any number less than 120. In this range, read and write numerals and represent a number of objects with a written numeral.

Spell grade-appropriate words correctly, consulting references as needed.

Spell untaught words phonetically, drawing on phonemic awareness and spelling conventions.

Demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print.

Produce, expand, and rearrange complete simple and compound sentences (e.g., The boy watched the movie; The little boy watched the movie; The action movie was watched by the little boy).

Count within 1000; skip-count by 5s, 10s, and 100s.

Decode two-syllable words following basic patterns by breaking the words into syllables.

Relate counting to addition and subtraction (e.g., by counting on 2 to add 2).

Produce, expand, and rearrange complete simple and compound sentences (e.g., The boy watched the movie; The little boy watched the movie; The action movie was watched by the little boy).

Recognize the distinguishing features of a sentence (e.g., first word, capitalization, ending punctuation).

Produce complete sentences when appropriate to task and situation. (See grade 1 Language standards 1 and 3 on page 26 for specific expectations.)

Decode regularly spelled one-syllable words.

Decode two-syllable words following basic patterns by breaking the words into syllables.

Decode multisyllable words.

Decode regularly spelled two-syllable words with long vowels.

Spell untaught words phonetically, drawing on phonemic awareness and spelling conventions.

Order adjectives within sentences according to conventional patterns (e.g., a small red bag rather than a red small bag).

Produce simple, compound, and complex sentences.

Produce and expand complete sentences in shared language activities.

Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding, rereading as necessary.

Use complete sentences in a shared language activity.

Demonstrate beginning cursive writing skills.

Count forward beginning from a given number within the known sequence (instead of having to begin at 1).

Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.Decode two-syllable words following basic patterns by breaking the words into syllables.

Produce and expand complete simple and compound declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory sentences in response to prompts.

Count to 100 by ones and by tens.

Relate counting to addition and subtraction (e.g., by counting on 2 to add 2).

Produce and expand complete sentences in shared languag activities.

Recognize the distinguishing features of a sentence (e.g., first word, capitalization, ending punctuation).

Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words. Recognize and read grade-appropriate irregularly spelled words including word families

Produce, expand, and rearrange complete simple and compound sentences (e.g., The boy watched the movie; The little boy watched the movie; The action movie was watched by the little boy).

Compare three-digit numbers using representations and numbers (e.g., identify more hundreds, less hundreds, more tens, less tens, more ones, less ones, larger number, smaller number)

Recognize the distinguishing features of a sentence (e.g., first word, capitalization).

Decode regularly spelled consonant‐vowel‐consonant (CVC), CV and VC words.

Use conventional spelling for words with common spelling patterns.

Decode multi‐syllable words.

Recognize the distinguishing features of a sentence (e.g., ending punctuation).

Decode regularly spelled two‐syllable words with long vowels.

Produce simple, compound and complex sentences in writing.

Order adjectives within sentences according to conventional patterns (e.g., a small red bag rather than a red small bag).

Know number names and the count sequence. Count to 100 by ones and by tens.

Add and subtract within 20. Relate counting to addition and subtraction (e.g., by counting on 2 to add 2).

Produce simple, compound, and complex sentences.

Decode two-syllable words following basic patterns by breaking the words into syllables.

Count to tell the number of objects. Count to answer “how many?” questions about as many as 20 things arranged in a line, a rectangular array, or a circle, or as many as 10 things in a scattered configuration; given a number from 1-20, count out that many objects.

Decode multisyllable words.

Decode regularly spelled two-syllable words with long vowels.

Recognize the distinguishing features of a sentence (e.g., first word, capitalization, ending punctuation).

Know number names and the count sequence. Write numbers from 0 to 20. Represent a number of objects with a written numeral 0-20 (with 0 representing a count of no objects).

Spell untaught words phonetically, drawing on phonemic awareness and spelling conventions.

Understand place value. Compare two two-digit numbers based on meanings of the tens and ones digits, recording the results of comparisons with the symbols >, =, and <.

Extend the counting sequence. Count to 120, starting at any number less than 120. In this range, read and write numerals and represent a number of objects with a written numeral.

Isolate and pronounce initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in spoken single-syllable and 4-letters words.

Understand place value. Read and write numbers to 1000 using base-ten numerals, number names, and expanded form.

Produce and expand complete sentences in shared language activities.

Produce complete sentences when appropriate to task and situation. (See grade 1 Language standards 1 and 3 on page 26 for specific expectations.)

Know number names and the count sequence. Count forward beginning from a given number within the known sequence (instead of having to begin at 1).

Produce, expand, and rearrange complete simple and compound sentences (e.g., The boy watched the movie; The little boy watched the movie; The action movie was watched by the little boy).

Decode regularly spelled one-syllable words.

Produce complete sentences when appropriate to task and situation.

Decode regularly spelled one-syllable words.

Spell untaught words phonetically, drawing on phonemic awareness and spelling conventions.

Decode multisyllable words.

Decode regularly spelled two-syllable words with long vowels.

Use addition and subtraction within 20 to solve word problems involving situations of adding to, taking from, putting together, taking apart, and comparing, with unknowns in all positions, e.g., by using objects, drawings, and equations with a symbol for the unknown number to represent the problem.2

Compare two three-digit numbers based on meanings of the hundreds, tens, and ones digits, using >, =, and < symbols to record the results of comparisons.

Produce simple, compound, and complex sentences.

Count to 120, starting at any number less than 120. In this range, read and write numerals and represent a number of objects with a written numeral.

Produce, expand, and rearrange complete simple and compound sentences (e.g., The boy watched the movie; The little boy watched the movie; The action movie was watched by the little boy).

Compare two two-digit numbers based on meanings of the tens and ones digits, recording the results of comparisons with the symbols >, =, and <.