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“Build Your Best Burger” – A Fun, Free Activity!

Hungry for a hands-on reading or spelling activity your students will relish? If so, our funny and yummy Build Your Best Burger review activity is certain to satisfy!

Correct answers reveal familiar burger toppings your students can choose to add to their patties as they build their best burger. Ketchup, pickles and cheese are on the menu, as are a few, let’s call them, “off-menu” items that make learning fun.

“Would you like fries with that?”

We’re serving up the perfect side dish for this activity you and your students are sure to savor. Keep reading, and feast on these Top 10 Fun Facts about Hamburgers…

Build Your Best Burger – A fun and funny practice activity

Adding fun to reading and spelling review is the perfect topping everyone will agree on.

As your students build their perfect burger with familiar toppings like cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes, they’ll get the practice they need to make learning stick. A few “untraditional” toppings will make their learning fun.

Instructions for “Build Your Best Burger”

  1. Download and print the burger topping cards.
  2. Cut out the reading word cards for the level you are teaching or the blank spelling cards and choose the spelling words you’d like to practice. (Print the cards back to back or tape/glue separate sheets together.)
  3. Scatter the cards on the floor or your table with the illustrations facing down.
  4. Have your student choose a card and read or spell the given word.
  5. Turn the card over to reveal the burger topping. If it’s a topping he likes, have him add it to his burger. If not, have him toss it over his shoulder or pretend to feed it to the dog.

Activity Tip – Dial up the fun by adding this “hamburger call” from one of the first hamburger street vendors in 1885:

“Hamburgers, hamburgers, hamburgers,

Hot, hot, hot

Onions in the middle, pickles on top.

Makes your lips go flippity flop!”

(You can make it even more fun by replacing the word “pickle” with the topping on the turned card!)

Have fun!

For additional ideas to make practice fun, check out our 12 Great Ways to Review Reading Word Cards blog post. You can learn more about why multisensory teaching is so important in this Multisensory Teaching for Reading and Spelling post.

Top 10 Fun Facts about Hamburgers

  1. From Germany with love. While there are many stories about who invented the hamburger as we know it today, the origin of the word “Hamburger” is not in question. In the 19th century, the city of Hamburg, Germany, was famous for its beef patties, which were served raw or lightly cooked. German immigrants brought this culinary tradition to the United States where it evolved into the modern-day hamburger.
  2. Make mine with cheese please. It wasn’t until 1920 that a slice of cheese was added to a hamburger. The only reason it was added is because a 16-year-old boy named Lionel accidentally burned a hamburger while working at his father’s sandwich shop in California. In an attempt to save it, he placed a slice of cheese on top, creating the first-ever scrumptious cheeseburger.
  3. The biggest burger ever! In 2012, hamburger lovers surpassed all the previous records by making the Guinness World Record for the largest hamburger ever made. It weighed in at a staggering 2,014 pounds (914 kg)! This gigantic burger was cooked up in Minnesota.
  4. Americans LOVE their hamburgers! Americans eat more hamburgers than any other country in the world. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, Americans consume more than 50 billion hamburgers a year, which is almost three burgers per week for every person in the country.
  5. Line them up! If all the burgers eaten by Americans in a year were arranged in a straight line, it would circle the earth 32 times!
  6. See more in Seymour. In 1885, Charles Nagreen, a lad of 15, was selling meatballs at the Outagamie County Fair in Seymour, Wisconsin, without much success. People wanted to move freely around the festival without the need to eat at his stand. So, this enterprising teenager decided to flatten his hamburger steak and insert it between two slices of bread so people could move freely around the fair while eating his sandwich. His creation was called “Hamburger Charlie,” and to this day many people consider young Charlie Nagreen to be the father of the modern hamburger.
    If you’re in the area and feeling hungry, you can visit the Hamburger Hall of Fame in Seymour, which features the world’s largest collection of hamburger items.
  7. All Shook Up. Elvis Presley loved burgers and experimented with using other ingredients on his hamburgers, such as bananas, peanuts, syrup, and eggs.
  8. Where’s the beef? Burgers around the world are served differently than those in America. In India, where beef is banned, hamburgers are made of lamb, salmon, tuna and chicken. In Mexico, hamburgers are served with ham on top. In Japan, hamburgers are bun-less.
  9. A nickel? White Castle was founded in 1921 in Wichita, Kansas, and is the oldest hamburger chain in the country. Their steam-fried hamburgers originally sold for a nickel.
  10. McDonald’s is my kind of place. When it comes to burgers, McDonald’s is the king of kings. No one sells more hamburgers than McDonald’s, clocking in at 300 billion burgers sold to date. In fact, McDonald’s sells an astonishing 75 burgers every second! From its humble beginnings in California in 1940, McDonald’s has become the largest global fast-food chain in the world, with over 40,000 restaurant locations in over 100 countries.

I don’t know about you, but all this hamburger talk is making me hungry! Anyone want to join me for a burger?

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Elizabeth

says:

Looking forward to trying this and your many other activities in our upcoming school year.

Robin

says: Customer Service

Wonderful, Elizabeth! Enjoy!

Jackie

says:

This sounds like a great way to make learning fun. I could even take it a step further with an older child and have them build a sentence with the “toppings”.

Robin

says: Customer Service

What a great idea, Jackie!

Julie

says:

I love all these free add on activities. My son was so excited that he now reads four letter words now!

Robin

says: Customer Service

Julie,
I love your son’s excitement about reading longer words! He’s going to be thrilled when he gets to two-syllable words!

Andrea

says:

So fun! My kids love all the new activities.

Robin

says: Customer Service

Thank you, Andrea! It’s great to hear kids are enjoying the activities!

Sara

says:

I love all the activities that AAR puts out.

Robin

says: Customer Service

Thank you, Sara!

Sarah

says:

Its always a challenge to make review fun and not chore. My son is going to love this review game!

Robin

says: Customer Service

I know what you mean, Sarah. That’s why we have so many fun review games and activities on our blog!

Sirina

says:

Looking forward to trying this!

Robin

says: Customer Service

Great, Sirina! We’d love to hear how it goes too.

Lesli

says:

This is great… colorful and fun!

Robin

says: Customer Service

Lesli,
Thank you! Enjoy!

Amy John

says:

We love burgers in our house so very excited for this colorful activity!

Robin

says: Customer Service

Amy,
I think this activity would be a lot of fun right before a family BBQ!

Adrianne

says:

I love the ideas for making learning more than “just” spelling, but it gets my son excited to learn fun facts while having fun.

Robin

says: Customer Service

Thank you, Adrianne! It’s great to hear that the facts are enjoyed as well as the activity.

Lara

says:

So cute for the start of summer!

Robin

says: Customer Service

Definitely!

Jimmy

says:

Great addition to the program!

Robin

says: Customer Service

Thank you, Jimmy!

John

says:

Great read!

Mary E Krueger

says:

This is such a fun way to review!

Rose

says:

Such a great and fun way to learns! Love this.

Michelle B

says:

How fun!

Bonnie

says:

Thank you for the free activities!

Robin

says: Customer Service

You’re welcome!

Rose

says:

Such a great and fun way to learn. Love this.

Penny

says:

We love all about spelling. I love the way it reinforces what is taught is All About Reading for each level. This activity will be fun to refresh in the summer.

Robin

says: Customer Service

Penny,
Such a great point! Spelling supports reading so much.

Christina Lockhart

says:

My little one is currently into “cooking” his play food for me. He would love this little packet of “food”. Thank you for this!

Robin

says: Customer Service

You’re welcome, Christina! It sounds like this activity will be especially appealing to your little aspiring chef!

Amanda

says:

Love this activity!

Tina S.

says:

Looking forward to playing this with my daughter.

Rebecca M.

says:

This is cute! My kids will love this activity!

Caitlin

says:

My kids will love building their own burgers! Such a fun activity!

Crystal Cohen

says:

I’ve never used AAR or AAS but have always wanted to. I would love to win Level 1 ❤️

Robin

says: Customer Service

Great, Crystal! Do you have any questions about AAR or AAS? I’m happy to help!