Pick a Peck of Pointers

Inspiring our students to want to read posters and word walls used to be challenging. Then we discovered the magic of pointers. Since we know our students enjoy variation as much as we do, we couldn’t just give them the traditional pointers with colorful wands and pointing hands.

Instead, whenever our students want to read posters and our word wall, we like to give them unique items to point with like plastic fruit, vegetables and magic wands.

Plastic fruits and vegetables are available at craft stores and Wal-Mart. We make the magic wands out of wooden dowels. (Color the dowel with black marker and wrap a piece of white electrical tape around the end.) Other pointer ideas include fly swatters, pencils with big erasers, plastic drink stirrers, sticks with pom-poms glued to the top, decorative pipe cleaners and chopsticks. The wide variety motivates everyone to pick a pointer and read.