Whisper Phones

A whisper phone is an amplification tool used by students in the writing process. This tool enables students to listen to their pieces of work by speaking into one end while holding the other end to their ears. My students love these little phones and are able to find many of their own mistakes and when peer editing, the mistakes of others.

Recently, I purchased a set of 12 whisper phones for an outrageous price of $75 (including tax, storage bags, and shipping). If wanted a class set, it would cost and additional $150 or more. I do not know about you, but as a teacher, I do not have that kind of money. So while on Pinterest, I came across a do-it-yourself version, that works just as well. I was able to make 30 whisper phones for $21.60 plus tax. Woohoo!

All you need is the following items from your local hardware store and you will be on your way to your own class set:

Supplies/My Cost
6 bags of 3/4" PVC Elbows/15.36
1 3/4" PVC Pipe/2.67
1 Roll of Duct Tape/3.57

 As you can see by the picture, I went a little crazy with the different kinds of duct tape, but one roll should do the trick.


Once you have these items, cut the PVC pipe into 3 1/2" inch pieces (I got about 32). You can also check with your hardware store to see if they will do this part for you, my husband did mine. Then add an elbow to each end of the the cut pipe. Finally, put duck tape around the pipe that is still exposed. Presto! Pronto! You have a class set of whisper phones!

Rest in Piece

Teaching writing this year has brought some familiar challenges. "Said" was running ramped throughout the writings in our classroom as well as other commonly used words: fun, then, and like, etc.. It was became apparent that we would have to take drastic measures to rid ourselves of these commonly used vocabulary words and introduce words that could be used in their stead.

To help the process we held a funeral service for our friend Said. Needless to say, there was lots of spectulation as to who committed the crime. Most of my students have placed the blame on me, claiming that I had a hatred for the Said (not true!). I have since wrote a book about the likely suspects (not yet published). It has open the door for many new words that my class is now using in their writing. I often hear students correct one another during peer reviews on the use of Said and many other commonly used words.

I have created a few worksheets that can be stapled into a student's writing notebook. The worksheets are brainstorming sheets and can be referenced whenever they are working on their next masterpiece. You can download this sheet as well as others on my Teacher Pay Teachers Page http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Writing-Vocabulary There is a Free version of the R.I.P. Said shown below. You can access that version by clicking on the link http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/RIP-Said

Happy Brainstorming!