We have been working on learning CVC and word families this week. I tried coming up with some simple, fun games my kids can play independently to practice and feel more confident. I’ll be expanding the list of resources we have been using, but here are the word family activities and games we loved this week.
Sensory Bin Hide and Seek Matching Game for Learning Word Family Words
We were playing with a rainbow sensory bid after reading Go Get ‘Em Tiger! by Sabrina and Eunice Moyle yesterday. We used the sensory bin for this activity again for a matching game. I hid the picture cards and matching word cards for the “ap” word family under the colored pasta.
Then using a “hear yourself phone” from the dollar store, my children listened as they said the word they found. Then they would hunt in the tray for the matching card for each word. They continued this until they found all the cards. I loved hearing my daughter take her time sounding out the word and listening for letter sounds to decide what card to look for next.
I designed the cards to match words and graphics for a quick comprehension check. I’m thinking of making a second set without colors to make it more challenging.
Here is a link to my Teacher’s Pay Teacher’s page for the handouts for this game. The file also includes other Letter A Word Family games and activities not included in this post.
Do-A-Dot Painting Fluency Practice
My kids LOVE Do-A-Dot paint, and I love how easy it is to clean up! So I designed an activity for practicing the word families -ag, at, an, ap, and am. I’m working on making activities for other words as well. I will update this post when it’s completed.
We use this mat for two different activities. The first one is using dot paint. The kids first say the two-letter blend listed on the page. Then practice saying the blend three times while dotting their paper with color. Then, they read three words from the same word family, again painting their paper with a dot after reading each word. This pattern continues for the rest of the page. When my daughter struggled, we paused and used the hear yourself phone or CVC mat with Science of Reading strategies to help read the word.
The other way we use this activity is by laminating the mat and using magnetic bingo chips. As the kids read the blends or words on the mat, they place a bingo chip on the circle or word. Then to practice a second time, they use a magnetic wand and swipe over the chip as they say the blend and word a second time.
For these handouts please visit my page on TPT.
CVC Tray Center using SOR Strategies
My daughter recently got a new Pop-It journal, and we have been using it to make lists of words she is learning. The front Pop-It she uses to sound out sounds in words. Then I put together a center activity from Science of Reading strategies to help kids practice CVC words. This center activity significantly helped as they played games or completed the Do-A-Dot activity to help with tricky words. This tray includes strategies that help children say the word, tap their fingers for each sound they hear, build the word using linking letter cubes and magnetic letters and practice writing it.
Scavenger Hunt for Examples in books of Word Family Words
As we read books this week, we would pause to search for examples of a- vowel word family words. Then we made a chart together. Next time, I’d love to use our sticky sentence strips to let children write the words themselves and independently add them to the chart.
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I was a teacher for almost a decade before being a homeschooling parent. I try to take all my best practices from the classroom and make learning engaging, exciting, and filled with curiosity for my kids. Please visit my other posts below for more ideas for your young learners. Thank you again- Chrissy
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