Have you heard that our BEST friends in the whole wide world wrote a children’s book?! Well, if you haven’t heard… Hope and Wade King wrote a book! I’m here to show you all of the engaging activities for teaching life skills that we created to go alongside The Wild Card Kids.
Click HERE to check out the teaching resource.
Click HERE to find the book on Amazon.
Five kids find a mysterious deck of cards–and are plunged into a strange new world. Maverick, Piper, Zian, Zak, and Skye must now find their way back home. They carry with them the deck’s wild card, which provides both clues and challenges they must overcome on their journey. Along the way, the children have individual revelations, experience personal growth, and learn the true nature of empowerment.
The Wild Card Kids teaches five important life skills, represented by the acronym MAGIC. The story is designed for discussions about each character’s personal journey.
As mentioned above, the book teaches five important life skills represented by the acronym: MAGIC. Let me break it down: Make Eye Contact, Accept Failure and Learn From Mistakes, Get Up and Go For It, There is no “I” in Team, Celebrate and Empower Others.
Let’s take a look at some of the goodies we created to go with the book and the lessons taught. Students can “Power Up” when they’ve shown growth in one of the five areas with these bracelets. You can also pass out bookmarks to remind the students to always create MAGIC!
One of the components that we felt was very important was a reflection piece. We created a 21 day journal for students to complete. Students reflect on their mindset, mood, and create a plan for making the most out of the day.
We all know how important having a Growth Mindset is, but it’s always an easy thing to teach. Accepting failure is hard… even for adults. Making eye contact takes a lot of practice. But, we give you very practical ways to mesh this into your classroom environment.
We also include several interactive activities that allow students to PRACTICE making eye contact, accepting failure, being bold, working with others, and celebrating classmates. These activities are simple and do not take a ton of your class time.
Students can also make themselves as one of The Wild Card Kids! I mean… how cute are these???
Wait! That’s not all! I have a really fun freebie for you. In the book the students face different obstacles that they have to overcome. They each learn a lesson on how to overcome those obstacles. The Cyclops represents the obstacle that Maverick faced. Maverick had to stand boldly, look him in the eye, and ask him a question to get past the gate. So, for this activity students complete a directed drawing of The Cyclops. Then, they write about an obstacle or challenge they have OR about one of the obstacles from the story.
Don’t want to forget these activities? Pin the image below to your Pinterest boards!
Hey, y’all! My name is Amy Lemons and I am passionate about providing students with both engaging and effective standards-based Math and ELA lessons.
Sample a day of Rooted in Reading with these lesson plans and activities for Reading Comprehension, Vocabulary, and Grammar!
