Materials for the lesson

A3 size papers or paper by the meter.
A stapler.
A basket or a cardboard box.
Paper-tape or chalk.

Teachers’ Bell.

Layout of the classroom

Desks are set aside so as to have space in the middle for movement.
In front of the black-board, on the floor, we design 3 squares with the paper-tape where the children will go and stand after they put on the hats.

We name each:  Words that have TWO, THREE OR MORE SYLLABLES.
The cardboard box is placed at the opposite wall of the board.
The lesson could also take place (with some adjustments) in the school yard.

1^st Phase

We cut and staple the papers creating hats for the children to wear. The students write the words on the hats and throw them in the box.

Example of word combination:

Riddle, laughing, wondering, material, inherited, cassette, deaf, the, that, what, ballet, backwards, braveness, effort, pencils, information, tongue, stressed, he, she, I,
slippery, translator, paper, withhold, discover, symbol, letter, archive, documentation, character, rhythm, sound, communication.

The teacher is free to use more words that could be better for his sentences in Phase 4-5.

2^nd Phase

The students divide into 2 groups. One has many students and the other 3-4 students. The students scatter around, as far away from the box as possible.  When the Teachers’ Bell sounds, the team with the most students, run and take a hat randomly and wear it with the word showing up-front and then go fast to take their place in one of the three squares in front of the black-board. It is natural for the students to make some mistakes and to go to the wrong syllable-count square -“apartment”-as it all happens so fast and they do not know what is written on their hat.

3^rd Phase

 Now comes the turn of the other team, that comes to separate the words and to put them (“park them”) where they belong. The hats with the 2-syllable words to the according “apartment”, the 3-syllable to theirs etc.

4^th Phase

With the words that the students chose and sorted, they create sentences aligning the students that are wearing the according hats. They also copy the sentences on a piece of paper.

i.e.
What riddle I discovered.
I wonder with the laughing sound.

5^th Phase

The 2 groups switch roles and the game is repeated with different sentences.

The students can also put their sentences in order (aligned), read them aloud and try to play them in a surrealistic dialogue that makes no sense.