Contraction Surgery

Have you ever tried contraction surgery? My kids work in groups of 4 and I give each group a set of letter cards that make the two "contraction words" (for the contraction don't I would give them the letter cards d,o,n,o,t). I tell each group what two words they need to form. They lay the letters cards on a big piece of construction paper to spell the two words. When the words are formed, I hand each group a band-aid and they "operate" on their patient to make the contractions. The operation consists of deciding what letters to remove, gluing down the remaining letters, and using the band-aid as the apostrophe (which is a great visual for them).  When they operate they also learn that no letters are removed from the first word (except for won't - but we never do surgery on will not - it's much too complicated!) When they are done, I give each child a Contraction Surgery sheet and they perform their own surgery. To cut down on expenses, we cut the sticky part of bandaids into 4 pieces. 

Here's how the finished patients look:

You can download the letter cards and worksheet. Hope you find it useful!