Sally sells seashells by the seashore.
Betty bought some bitter butter. Put the bitter butter in the batter, made the batter bitter. Then she
bought some better butter, put the better butter in the bitter batter, made the bitter batter better.
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?
Can your students articulate these adages without goofing up? How many mistakes did they make?
Students can have fun repeating these tongue twisters and recording number of mistakes. They can
change variables (while being timed, while listening to music, having to skip one word (can they say
Peter’s Peppers without saying the word picked?, in front of the entire class, etc.) to obtain different
results. They can record and chart their findings. (one example below) They can write a technical report
summarizing their findings. They are doing math, no?
Sarah --Mistakes
Sally’s seashells
1
Betty’s butter
4
Woody’s wood
2
Peter’s peppers
4
Mollie -- Mistakes
0
2
1
1
Andy -- Mistakes
1
4
1
3
4.5
4
3.5
3
2.5
Sarah
2
Mollie
1.5
Andy
1
0.5
0
Sally's shells
Betty's butter Woody's wood
Peter's
peppers