Fun with Mr. Potato Head

I posted a picture some time back on my facebook page about giving a new Mr. Potato Head a bath. I was asked to write a post about how I use Mr. Potato Head for therapy. Now that my husband is on the mend and the school year is winding down, I thought it was time to actually sit down and write out my thoughts. Mr. Potato Head goes to elementary school.....

The first thing I would like to say is that Mr. Potato Head is a pretty popular guy among my kindergarten to 2nd grade groups. He sometimes even pops up with my older groups although in a slightly less traditional manner.

1. Pronouns- This is one of his most obvious uses.

2. Attributes- You can talk about the size of the Potato Head, clothing options, hair options, etc.

3. Following Directions- This tags along with pronouns. I often ask my students to give the Potato Heads certain accessories or pair them up with some of my animal figurines. If you can find a doll house, why not turn it into Mr. Potato's house for spatial concepts?

4. Sensory bin- I use this to help students calm down when they are over stimulated. It's also a great way to teach about body parts and senses.

5. Requesting/turn taking- I have used Mr. Potato Head to get some of kindergarten students to request rather than to grab items that they want.

6. Articulation- As other bloggers have said in the past, you can use Mr. Potato head to practice at phrase/sentence level using target sound pictures. You can also use phonics figurines if you have the Lakeshore tubs (or can borrow from teachers) or your own set of gathered items.

7. Parts of Speech- As I said earlier, Mr. Potato Head sometimes visits my older groups. I often use pieces from my collection for Colourful Semantics lessons that involve sorting items into who, what, and where.

8.  Create your own Spud Story- I like to think that every variation of Potato Head has his/her own story. We can make up a story for our Potato Head and talk about his/her adventures. It could be Star Wars, a day on the farm, a day at the pet shop....you can't go wrong.


While I have seen some bloggers suggest to buy Mr. Potato Head on Amazon, I would suggest looking for him at thrift stores. I have found my entire collection by shopping at Goodwill, Salvation Army, and garage sales. The most expensive set I bought was the Star Wars set, which was $5. Just make sure you give them a good bath before bringing them to work.

Part Two of my recent finds....

Last week, I posted about my recent discovery of the Entire World of R products. I absolutely love their two story books, but I also needed something for students who aren't quite ready for reading paragraphs. I started out by simply writing two to three target phrases on sentence strips. These work really well if you have students who are struggling readers. You have complete control over the words that they will encounter. I wanted something similar for targeting sentence level, but I didn't have time to make my own. Luckily, I noticed that Amazon also carried the Entire World of R flip books. 

It's an eight book set that targets the different variations of /r/ in every position of words. It's $84 on Amazon which is definitely hard to swallow when you first see the books. Why? They are printed on some sort of cardboard-like paper that students can easily destroy by bending or inadvertently ripping out when turning the pages too roughly. I wish they were made more similarly to Super Duper's flip books and turn & talk series. It is a pretty big negative for a material that is very useful otherwise. I really like how students can mix up the pages to create their own silly sentence or just follow the original order of the pages. (Would I buy it out of pocket again now? No. This is something I think would be better on a purchase request given the questionable quality.)

The second material we are currently enjoying in my room is Alfredo's Food Fight. This was Goodwill find in the .50 cent game section. I took a chance and bought it without doing a thorough inspection of game pieces. I was lucky to find out that it was complete and barely used. 

The object of the game is to throw meatballs at Alfredo as he spins around. The fork launchers can be a little testy if you aren't paying attention to the "noodles" (yarn). It's really bad to get stuck in the forks. However, it is hilarious to see the meatballs flying around. I have used this with preschoolers and fifth graders alike. It is something that they all have loved and request to play again.