As students stumble into class in the morning, their brains are still on low. Create riddles of the day to get the students brains charged. The best riddles are short because of time constraints and students attention spans.
Write funny and short riddles called hink pink, hinky pinky, or hinkity pinkity to engage students during transitional times. After you have intrigued the students, make a competition for them to create the most difficult hink pink, hinky pinky, or hinkity pinkity. As well, have students create theme hink pink’s or hinky pinky’s to educate the class on a fact, or the silliest hinkity pinkity.
Hink Pink Lesson Plan
Share riddles with the class. Ask the class the difference between a riddle and a joke?
Ask the students to illustrate the format of a riddle. There is a question and an answer to a riddle.
Tell the students, a hink pink riddle and write it on the board. Do a few and ask the students if they see a pattern with the answer. After four or five riddles, tell the students the pattern, only if students are unable to see the pattern.
Hink Pink is riddles that are answered by choosing two words that rhyme. The two rhyming words must have 1 syllable.
What is a library thief?
a book crook
The answer to the riddle rhyme contains two one syllable words.
Ask the students to talk with a partner and create their own hink pink. Have them write them on construction paper with the answers on the back. Collect all of the hink pink.
Each day place a new hink pink on the board for the students to answer.
After students have answered a handful of hink pinks you can introduce hinky pinky and hinkity pinkity.
Hinky Pinky is riddles that are answered with 2 syllable rhyming words.
What do baby cats wear on their paws?
kitten mittens
The answer contains 2 syllable rhyming words.
Hinkity Pinkity is riddles that are answered with 3 syllable rhyming words.
What fruit is from the capital of Cuba?
Havana banana
Benefits of Riddles of the Day
- Students gather and interpret data
- Students make inferences and draw conclusions
- Students problem solve
- Students learn to work cooperatively together
- Students learn new vocabulary
Fun and short riddles are a great way to engage students in class. Begin a new concept with a hink pink, hinky pinky, or hinkity pinkity. Students are more likely to remember the capital of Cuba with the hinkity pinkity riddle rather than just learning it from a fact sheet.
