Puns Puzzles and Riddles

Mr. / Girgis

1-Puns

Introduction:

The benefits:

1-It can help students feel more comfortable in their new language.

2-A shared moment of humor lowers the effective filter, that invisible

barrier that makes learners feel awkward and uncomfortable.

3-If a class can laugh together, they are likely to learn better together,

4-They build meta-linguistic awareness, or conscious awareness

of the forms of language, and this, in turn, helps in learning more

language

Puns:

Puns are a special form of humor based on double meaning.  They require processing the sound and meaning of words twice, puns demand considerable language agility. The humor of puns is based on language play.

1: Soundalike puns

Soundalike puns are based on homophones, words that sound the same, but have different spellings and meanings (e.g., hair/hare; to/too/ two). An example of a soundalike pun is the sign for a daycare provider that reads “Wee Care Day Care.” The words we and wee are homophones, which gives “Wee Care” two meanings.

On the one hand, the phrase “we care” serves as a statement of philosophy by the business to show that they care about the children they take care of.The meaning of the compound noun, which can be paraphrased as “care of little ones,” adds an appealing dimension to the name of the business.

2-Lookalike puns 

Polysemous words are spelled and pronounced the same and have related meanings (e.g., “ruler” as a measuring stick or a king; “mole” as a burrowing mammal or a spy). Polysemous words create lookalike puns.

3: Close-sounding puns

When one word is substituted for another that sounds like it, whether the substitution is for a single word or part of a phrase, that can create a close-sounding pun. An example of a close-sounding pun is a sign seen on a van in Chicago: “Ex-stink Sewer and Drainage.” This humorous title for a plumbing business is based on the close pronunciation of “Ex-stink” and the word extinct.

4: Texting puns

(alphabetic, numeric, and simplified spelling) Alphabetic, numeric, and simplified spelling can create texting puns. These are based on the increasingly common practice of using the sound and/or spelling of alphabet letters, numbers or symbols, or simplified spelling as
a way to represent or “spell” a word. Examples might be “cre8” for the word create, or “@mosphere” for atmosphere.

English Teacher Puns

1. English teachers get lit
2. Reading is lit
3. Let's eat Grandma.  Let's eat, Grandma.  Comma's save lives.
4. English teachers are always write!
5. The past, the present, and the future walked into a bar. It was tense.
6. When I was a kid, my English teacher looked my way and said, "Name two pronouns." I said, "Who, me?"
7. Why are apostrophes terrible to date?  Because they are possessive
8. Which dinosaur knows a lot of synonyms?  A thesaurus
9. 7 days without a pun makes one weak
10. Metaphors be with you

Science Teacher Puns

1. I make horrible science puns, but only periodically
2. Think like a proton and stay positive
3. I love the way the earth rotates.  It really makes my day
4. I don't think you understand the gravity of this science lesson
5. Once I told a chemistry joke. There was no reaction.
6. When I heard oxygen and magnesium were dating, I was like O MG
7. You matter!  Unless you multiply yourself by the speed of light...then you energy.
8. My head hertz from the frequency of these puns
9. That was sodium funny. I slapped my neon that one.
10. I'm out of chemistry jokes, but I should zinc of a new one

Math Teacher Puns

1. Why is the obtuse triangle upset? Because it's never right
2. Not all math puns are horrible. Only sum
3. y=mx+b is my favorite one-liner
4. Think outside the quadrilateral
5. Too much pi gives you a large circumference
6. Oh you have graph paper?  You must be plotting something
7. My math teacher called me average.  That was mean.
8. You have to be odd to be number 1
9. Math teachers have problems
10. You know what seems odd to me?
    
11. Numbers that aren't divisible by 2

History Teacher Puns

1. Do you think ancient Mesopotamians went on Sumer vacation?
2. Who built King Arthur's Round Table? Sir Cumference
3. There's no time for Stalin when you're Russian to industrialize 
4. History.  History.  Did I just rewrite history?
5. Civil War jokes?  I General Lee don't find them funny
6. History teachers live in the past
7. If anyone Khan, Genghis Kahn
8. I read the constitution for the articles
9. As a history teacher I like to Babylon
10. What kind of music did the Pilgrims like?  Plymouth Roc

Mazes require the player to find a way through a maze on paper, in virtual reality, or in real life. Mazes teach spatial concepts, logical progression, and deductive reasoning, as well as directionality. Mazes are often considered to be art themselves.

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The other day a well-meaning teacher made a comment that went something like this: “I wish my centers could be as easy as just adding puzzles and games.”  I had to take a deep breath, count slowly to 10 and then I chose to smile and walk away.

 {I’m pretty sure she did not want to hear my thesis on the benefits of puzzles and games.} But it got me thinking and evaluating my classroom.  I don’t ever want to be filling my learning time with “just puzzles” or “just games” or any fluff activities.  Instead I want my students to be participating in activities that are rooted in learning academic and life skills.

2. Shape Puzzles

I love, love, love using pattern blocks and shape puzzles in my classroom.  Not only are students exposed to important shapes, but these puzzles come in a variety of complexity levels making it easy to differentiate for the needs of my students.

 Using pattern blocks as the pieces also teaches spacial recognition skills and geometric thinking – both of which are important to their future success in math.  Without even knowing the mathematical term, your students will be practicing skills like rotation and reflection.

I love creating these to coordinate with themes and holidays in our classroom. It doesn’t change the important skills the students are learning, but it definitely adds an element of engagement.

The other thing I really love about these is the ability to differentiate.  Each of the puzzles comes in three versions: a full color version, a black and white version that shows the outline of each piece and a black and white that only shows the shape outline.  These varying degrees of difficulty allow my to keep each of my students challenged.  Here’s a sample of the different levels from the transportation set:

It’s not JUST a Puzzle

I love using puzzles in my classroom and my students love them too.  But in my quest to make sure I was doing my students justice I set off to confirm what I already knew:  Puzzles have so many wonderful academic and life skills associated with them that they are a perfect classroom activity!

Puzzles have been shown to help students with fine motor development, hand-eye coordination, problem solving skills and so much more. There are lots of different types of puzzles.  Here’s just a few that I use in my classroom:

1. Jigsaw Puzzles

There are times when I have a puzzle center in the classroom using jigsaw puzzles.  At the beginning of the year we may start with smaller puzzles that have 24-36 pieces.  But as the year goes on we increase the complexity of the puzzles. I have stocked up on puzzles of all shapes and sizes from the Dollar Store and Garage Sales.

  I always love finding puzzles that connect to our learning themes or concepts, but that does not always happen.  Although the picture might not be academic in nature, I know that my students are working on important thinking skills and building analytical thinking patterns that will later help them academically.

2. Shape Puzzles

I love, love, love using pattern blocks and shape puzzles in my classroom.  Not only are students exposed to important shapes, but these puzzles come in a variety of complexity levels making it easy to differentiate for the needs of my students.

 Using pattern blocks as the pieces also teaches spacial recognition skills and geometric thinking – both of which are important to their future success in math.  Without even knowing the mathematical term, your students will be practicing skills like rotation and reflection.

I love creating these to coordinate with themes and holidays in our classroom. It doesn’t change the important skills the students are learning, but it definitely adds an element of engagement.

The other thing I really love about these is the ability to differentiate.  Each of the puzzles comes in three versions: a full color version, a black and white version that shows the outline of each piece and a black and white that only shows the shape outline.  These varying degrees of difficulty allow my to keep each of my students challenged.  Here’s a sample of the different levels from the transportation set:

3-Riddles

1-They introduce intellectual humor to learners.

2-They help learners to work their minds.

3-They make learners read for comprehension.

4-They expand learners' vocabulary.

5-They give learners the chance to learn riddles and teach them to others.

6-They make a bond with the learners in their future life.