phonics Archives - The Candy Class

18 09, 2019

Teaching the Alphabet & a Freebie

By Jolene|2019-09-18T17:40:58-05:00September 18th, 2019|Reading|0 Comments

Many kindergartners come to school each year eager and ready to learn. Many students may come already knowing their alphabet letters and sounds, but many students also start without knowing most letters and sounds. As a former kindergarten teacher, I completely get how it can be challenging to get these students to master their alphabet while also trying to teach them how to read.

Often, many of these children that enter kindergarten without a firm foundation with letter recognition and beginning sounds just need to be taught their letters and sounds. Some students may not be developmentally ready. Others may have special learning needs. Whether the students just need someone to teach them or some of the students have special needs, it’s important to provide a variety of hands-on and engaging activities. Today, I am going to go over 14 ways to teach the alphabet. This will cover letter recognition, handwriting, and beginning sounds. I will also be sharing a nice size freebie with you that includes all these activities that I mention for the letter A.

Letter Recognition Activities

Identifying the letter out of a group of many different letters is an important part of letter recognition. Find it activities are great for helping students to identify and discern between the different letters.

2. It’s important to use a variety of approaches of activities when teaching the alphabet to keep things interesting and engaging for students. Bubble activities are another way for students to discern between different letters. Students enjoy using bingo daubers, so this makes it extra fun for them.

3. When it comes to writing a sentence, students will need to know the uppercase version of their letters in order to use an uppercase letter at the beginning of a sentence. Matching up the capital with the lowercase letter helps students to learn pairs like capital A and lowercase a.

4. Sorting uses more higher-level thinking, so it is important to incorporate sorting with letter recognition. That way, students are thinking more deeply as they learn to recognize letters.

5. Children love to stamp, so definitely include stamping as a letter recognition activity. For differentiating, you can include all the alphabet letters for those breezing through letter recognition or just a handful for those who are struggling with mastery more.

6. Students should also be recognizing how letters are part of words. By having students find the letter in a word, they will be making that connection.

Handwriting Activities

7. Coloring in the letters leads students to pay attention to the form of the letter. This help with recognition, and it helps prepare them for writing the letter.

8. Tracing is something you probably already have students do. It really helps to build up confidence for actually writing the letter and helps them to also pay attention to the form of the letter.

9. Of course, with handwriting practice, there should be actual writing of the letter. Adding a fun element like having their handwriting practice as part of an alphabet book increases engagement.

10. Students enjoy breaking out the crayons and markers. Having the students write the letters in rainbow colors just makes it more fun.

Beginning Sound Activities

11. Simple pictures that represent a beginning sound provide visuals for students, so they can distinguish between words that begin with the letter a and words that do not. Students can find and color pictures that begin with the targeted letter.

12. Like I mentioned before, sorting uses more higher-level thinking. Having students sort between pictures that begin with the targeted letter and those that do not is an important activity to use when teaching letter sounds.

13. Illustrating involves creativity. Creativity is also a higher-level thinking skill. Many students also enjoy drawing. By having students illustrate pictures with the targeted beginning sound, you will be activating their memories more.

#14 Making Alphabet Books

Alphabet books are a great way to reach your students that need to master their alphabet letters. Cutting is a process that takes time and helps develop fine motor skills. By having students cut out alphabet letters, students are processing how that letter is formed in a concrete way. They are learning letter recognition. They are developing their fine motor skills. They can also work on a variety of activities that help them to master letter recognition and sounds by making alphabet books that include these activities. Also, the act of publishing gives purpose to their learning activities. Students enjoy creating alphabet books to show to their family and friends. It’s a win across the board.

It is also very important to let them do the cutting of these, so they are receiving more out of this activity. The objective of making the alphabet books is not for them to have perfectly cut books. It is the process of making them that is important.

Follow the link here or click on the picture to learn more about my alphabet books resource.

You can learn more about how you can try out the Letter A Alphabet Book for free by clicking the picture or here.

Thanks for stopping by The Candy Class!

Jolene Mathew from The Candy Class

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16 04, 2019

Ideas for Teaching with Phonics Posters

By Jolene|2019-04-16T17:59:35-05:00April 16th, 2019|Reading|2 Comments

Today I’m going to share with you nine teaching ideas to use with your phonics posters. As you all know, an alphabet, displayed horizontally across a wall, is a standard feature in most elementary school classrooms. But have you ever asked yourself what purpose is it serving? How are my students (and I) using it, if at all? Is it contributing to student success and independence? Let’s remember, wall space is precious real estate in our classrooms.

One way to make your standard alphabet wall more meaningful is to add long vowel sounds, digraphs, and blends. You can even rename it “The Sound Wall.” After all, sounds are the foundation of reading and writing.

Consider this: A preschooler who only knows the 26 letter names, knows just that. But a kindergartener who knows just six letter sounds (s, a, t, i, p, n) and how to blend them can read over 30 words!

As students learn more and more word patterns and phonetic rules, you can reflect their learning on your ever-growing sound wall with phonics posters. This is just one way to make your wall space interactive and meaningful. Keep reading for even more ideas to support your early readers using phonics posters.

Idea #1: Daily Review

Choose the phonics posters you want to focus on for the day and lead the class through a review of the sounds. This is a great morning meeting routine and can help wake up sleepy brains and bodies. Reinforcement can be done with a chant. For example, when I point to a poster, together we can say, “Adventurous anteater a-a-a, busy beaver b-b-b, cut the cake c-c-c.”

Idea #2 Kinesthetic Review

If you want to add a kinesthetic component, you and your class can create a hand motion or body movement to go with each sound. For example, for “Kk” when students chant “kind kangaroo k-k-k,” they can jump up and down three times while saying the /k/ sound.

Turning Phonics Posters into Phonics Cards

Did you know you can easily turn your phonics wall posters into smaller cards that can be used for a variety of literacy activities? There are a few ways to do this depending on the size and format of your posters.

If your posters are in digital format:

You can reduce the size of each poster and print multiple posters to a single page by adjusting the settings in the print dialog box. If you are printing as a PDF, under “Preview” select “Layout.” Then click “Pages per Sheet” and choose between 1, 2, 4, 6, 9 and 16. When I first learned about this print option, I was so excited and printed in every size possible!

If your posters are store bought:

You can make smaller cards using the copy machine. Simply put the poster on the glass of the machine, reduce the size, and make a copy.

While it takes some extra effort up front, it will be worth it in the long run because consistency is so important when learning phonics. When students can take what they’ve learned in the whole group (through the phonics posters) and reinforce it at a literacy center (through card games), they are engaging in practice that is meaningful and connected.

If you posters are too large:

You can take individual photos of each one, upload them onto your computer, resize them, and print out smaller cards.

No matter which method you use, I highly recommend that you keep a master copy, laminate your cards for longevity, and make a few extras so you can maintain complete sets of cards year after year.

Idea #3: Using them in Guided Reading

Remember when I said I printed my phonics posters in every size possible? Well, here’s what I discovered.

Printing four to a page is a nice size for laminating, hole-punching, and putting on a metal ring for easy whole class review. This size also works great for guided reading when you want to introduce a certain vowel pattern or digraph in the text as a pre-reading activity.

Idea #4 Write the Room Activities

Printing six to a page is a great size for Write the Room activities. To set this up, hang up a selection of phonics cards around the room. You don’t want to hide them, but you also don’t want to tell students where they are. It’s like a scavenger hunt.

For example, you could hang up the long vowel cards for “ai, ee, ie, oa, and ue.” With a record sheet, a pencil, and a clipboard, students walk around the room, find each card, and complete a task such as drawing a picture, writing a word, or writing a sentence that matches the card.

Idea # 5 Use Phonics Posters as Game Cards

Printing nine to a page creates cards that are perfect for games like Go Fish and Memory.

Idea #6 Take-home Flashcards

With the nine-per-a-page size, you can also give students an alphabet set to practice with at home as flashcards. On just three pages, you can print the full alphabet.

I encourage my students to cut them out, and then tape them around their house. I teach them how to play “sound/letter” tag with their families. When a parent calls out a sound or letter, the student has to run to the poster, tag it and say the sound, and run back to the parent for the next one. It’s great exercise and a fun way to practice at home!

Idea # 7 Word Wall Headers

Phonics posters printed as a smaller size can also be used as word wall headers. If you include digraph headers in your word wall, such as “th,” your students will have a much easier time finding those tricky words like “there,” “they,” and “the.”

Idea #8: Matching Puzzles

Another fun use for phonics cards is to create matching puzzles. Simply cut each card in two. One piece is the letter and the other is the image.

I recommend introducing the puzzle as a whole class activity. With a class of 24 students, you can start this game after you’ve introduced 12 sounds. Cut the cards cut apart, mix them up, and put them in a box. Invite each student to draw out a card, no peeking!

On your signal, students mingle and find their correct match. Once students have made the match, go around the room and have each pair of students say the sound for the class.

You can also use this matching game as a literacy center. Just put 8-12 phonics card pairs in a bag and you’re all set. You can rotate cards in and out as you introduce new sounds.

Idea #9: Phonics Poster Collage

You can take a constructivist approach and make phonics posters with your class. Take a large piece of chart paper and either write the sound you are working on in the middle of it or glue on a phonics card. Tell your students their mission is to fill up the chart with pictures and words that have the designated sound.

Provide your students with the weekly advertisements from grocery stores, pharmacies, toy stores, etc. I pick up a few whenever I’m in a store and save them for projects like this. I prefer these over magazines because the store ads are picture heavy and have big and bold fonts, which is perfect for young learners. You can also provide your students with sticky notes, so they can draw and write their own pictures and words to add to the poster.

If you do a phonics college every time you introduce a letter, you will quickly run out of wall space! Therefore, I like to take a picture of each collage and print it out on an 8.5×11 piece of paper. You can laminate it, hole punch it, and bind it with metal rings to create an expandable class phonics book. Students will love looking at this book with each other. It becomes another form of “I Spy” as they try to find the picture or word they add on each page.

Using your phonics posters in interactive ways will engage your students and provide a solid foundation for reading.

You can find my comprehensive set of Phonics Posters and Chants here.

And if you’re looking for more hands-on activities for teaching long vowel teams, check out my post here.

Lastly, I’d like to invite you to sign-up for my free newsletter. Not only will you get a free set of my Blends Phonics Posters once you join, you will also receive many other freebies, teaching ideas, sales announcements, and more. Get the free blend posters here.

I hope you find these teaching ideas helpful. I’d love to hear the creative ways that you use phonics posters in your classroom. Please share and comment below.

Thank you for stopping by The Candy Class!

Written by a Guest Teacher

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11 04, 2019

Fun and Simple Activities for Bossy R & a Freebie

By Jolene|2019-04-11T18:25:38-05:00April 11th, 2019|Reading|0 Comments

I have some fun and simple activities I want to share to help you teach Bossy R. My ideas can be changed and used to teach other phonemes as well. With so many phonics concepts to teach, it’s hard to find time to create quality resources for all of them, so I like to use things that are pre-made. Unfortunately, sometimes it’s just as much work to prepare other people’s resources as it would be to make my own! That’s why I love finding activities that don’t require much preparation either.

In this post, I will share several examples of activities that will make teaching phonics much easier for you because they will require little prep, but will still be fun and effective in teaching phonemes like Bossy R. These activities will build students’ identification, blending, comprehension, and higher order thinking skills. Many of the activities I will discuss can be found in my Bossy R No Prep Free Sampler, which you can download here for free.

The skill I usually start teaching phonics with is identifying the phoneme.

Identifying Activity #1 For a quick and simple activity to help students distinguish between words that contain r-controlled vowels and words that do not, you can call out different words that contain the letter R. When they have the r-controlled vowel sound, students can point their bossy finger!

Identifying Activity #2 Students can find and color pictures that contain the Bossy R sound. You can give students a reference sheet at the end so they can check their work.

The next skill I work on after my students identify and isolate a phoneme is how to blend it.

Blending Activity #1

You can write different Bossy R words on index cards and let the students practice blending the words. This can be used as an activity for individuals, small groups, or as a center activity.

Blending Activity #2

Students can show they know how to blend by completing activities that ask them to connect words to pictures. You can give students a reference sheet again to check their work.

Moving Beyond Blending

Towards the end of the unit, students can start demonstrating mastery of Bossy R by completing comprehension activities. These will help them practice reading Bossy R words in context in sentences, passages, or books.

Comprehension Activity #1

You can give students sentences to correct that contain words with the r-controlled phoneme. This not only helps them read Bossy R words, but it also helps them practice correct grammar.

Comprehension Activity #2

Students can identify Bossy R in passages they read by underlining them when they find them.

Incorporating Higher-Order Thinking

After students have mastered a skill, I like to challenge them and give them activities that require higher-order thinking. An example of an activity that can help with this is for them to create their own short, silly stories using Bossy R words.

I hope the ideas in this post will make teaching phonics easier. You won’t have to take out a lot of time to prepare or create materials, but you will still have fun and effective activities to teach phonemes like Bossy R.

If you want teaching ideas for other skills like segmenting and spelling with Bossy R, check out my other post Building Up with Bossy R here. It goes into more depth by talking about other focused skills such as isolating Bossy R, segmenting Bossy R, subbing Bossy R, and more. Additionally, you can find all these skills covered in my Bossy R No Prep Printables pack found in my TPT store. It includes 85 no prep printables covering everything from identifying to writing with Bossy R. Link here to learn more.

Click here or the picture to link to the Bossy R No Prep Resource on TPT

Also, you can receive many of the activities I discussed from my Bossy R No Prep Free Sampler when you sign-up for my free newsletter here.

Thanks for visiting The Candy Class! Happy teaching!

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9 08, 2018

Activities for Teaching Long Vowel Teams in the Primary Classroom

By Jolene|2019-03-12T21:05:58-05:00August 9th, 2018|phonics, Vowel Teams|0 Comments

When it comes to teaching long vowel teams in the primary classroom, incorporating many different engaging activities is a must! If you are looking for some ideas and teaching strategies for teaching long vowel pairs, you have come to the right place!

First, let’s talk about introducing the vowel teams to students. First, it is important to put the main focus on the five long vowel sounds. This will lead them to tap into prior knowledge, so that they can grasp the concept that ai and ay make a long A sound. Besides introducing the graphemes to students that make each long vowel sound, it is also important to introduce new vocabulary too. There probably will be many familiar words when it comes to working with vowel teams, but there will probably be some new words too. Using pictures help a bunch with that!

Modeling is an effective way to introduce these long vowel teams. Interactive anchor charts are a good tool for the job. Incorporating sorting can make this interactive and will be more engaging for students than just telling them. That way, you can involve students by having them come up and put a word on the chart.

Once students are familiar with many words containing vowel teams, one activity idea is to have them sort with some vocabulary cards. It is important to have visual representation at this point when working with young readers who are just learning their vowel teams. The focus at this time is really getting them to discern between the long vowel sounds and to become familiar with the different graphemes. Later as students master this aspect, they can go on to sort between ai and ay words to challenge them more and build up their spelling skills too.

Another activity involves students identifying where the long vowel sound is in the word. Is it in the beginning, middle, or end? Students can use those vocabulary cards again, a fun party food tray, and some erasers to show the location of the sound. Students can use this activity in a center with a partner or on their own, or you can also have them work with you or an assistant in a small group with this also.

For whole instruction, you can also do an activity where students identify where the long vowel sound are located in the word. Simply say a word. Then ask if it is in the beginning. Students stay quiet if the answer is no or clap if the answer is yes. You repeat the question for both middle and end too. If you want to add an element of fun, you can let students use some clappers or even some cymbals instead.

Another activity is to use a phonics interactive notebook. This is a way for them to journal about the vowel teams, and it offers a way for them to revisit the concepts later. Students can sort between long o and not long o.

They can also avoid a shark “ai”tack by sorting long ai and not long ai.

Students can also do some sorting on paper too.

Additionally, they can also play fun dice games to distinguish between long and short vowel sounds.

Incorporating part or all of these activities should have students firmly familiar with the long vowel teams and the long vowel sound that each one makes.

Moving on to More Depth with Vowel Teams:

Once students show mastery of distinguishing between different long vowel sounds, they are ready to start word building. This is when you switch focus to the different vowel teams such as ai and ay. It is important that they know that ai makes a long a sound and ey makes a long e sound. That helps them with their decoding skills during reading tremendously! Also, at this point, they will also start to discern more between whether beach is spelled b-ea-ch or b-ee-ch.

There are many different activities they can do to help them learn the vowel teams. While no prep printables can be helpful, make sure to incorporate lots of fun games, hands-on activities, and even some technology.

Here are some ideas for hands-on activities for teaching vowel teams:

Students can do word building. It is a good idea when first getting started that they have some visual cues to help them out. Laminated word work cards are very helpful, and you can always mix them up. One day, they can use magnetic letters, another day they can use tiles, and another day they can use dry erase markers. They can also use the vocabulary cards to check their work with these.

Puzzles are another activity they can do. Not only does that offer a way to have a visual cue, but it is also self-correcting.

Students can also use that interactive anchor chart as a center activity.

Games are another fun way for students to practice vowel teams. They can spin and graph.

You can also involve some printables that include hands-on activities too. Worksheets do not have to be boring! Students can pull out some bingo daubers to select the vowel team.

They can also practice reading words with spinning and sorting activities that have them pairing words next to pictures to show that they are reading those words!

Once they are showing some mastery, they can build full words. This involves a little bit more critical thinking, but it also involves some hands-on action!

If you take some ice cream wooden sticks and index cards and write the vowel teams and alphabet letters on them, students can use these for building words and reading them.

For those with some computers, tablets, or iPads, you can also have them do some digital word building. If you want some accountability, simply use some recording sheets.

Click here for the digital word building activity for vowel teams.

You can always create things with these ideas for your personal classroom use if you are into DIY. However, I do have many of these activities in a bundle and sold in individual sets in my store if you would like to save a huge amount of time.

You can find the bundle by clicking here or on the picture. If you are interested in one of the individual sets, you can either click on one of the images above or link to it from the bundle. Please note that the vowel teams bundle does not include the digital word building resource. You can find that separately by clicking here.

I hope these teaching suggestions and activity ideas help you out in your classroom! If you would like more teaching ideas sent to your email, make sure to sign up. You will also receive a free set of long vowel and short vowel task cards for signing up! Click here to sign-up for those free task cards!

Thanks for stopping by the Candy Class!

Jolene 🙂

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12 04, 2015

Oa, Oe, Ow, Oa, Oe The Vowel Teams

By Jolene|2019-05-29T14:52:24-05:00April 12th, 2015|hands-on, Interactive Notebooks, phonics, Reading|0 Comments

Let’s talk about vowel teams today, but before we do sing the title of this post to the tune of a famous boy band song from quite a few decades ago. I won’t say which one, but it you get if right, you got the right stuff, haha!

Vowel Teams Oa Oe 2

You know how we all see these cute CVC activities all over the place, but then students get to other phonics activities and suddenly…bam, the availability of hands-on centers are too often replaced with worksheets galore.

Vowel Teams Oa Oe 1

One of my wise college professors use to say, “If you can turn it into a game, do it!” Then she would go on to explain how they will learn more because if it is interesting to them, it is engaging to them. If they are engaged, they are learning!

Relevancy is just important! What we view as relevant and what a young child views as relevant is two different things. Most often, they are not thinking about that math they will need when they are 25 to balance the checkbook. Nor are they thinking about how they need to become fluent writers to become a celebrity spy one day, I mean journalist. No way! Of course, they need plenty of writing opportunities. My point is they are not usually thinking they need to improve all their skills, so they can “adult.” To really engage them in learning, its important we get into their world to make it relevant. So what do children find relevant? Things like games, yup, that is relevant.

Enjoying putting puzzles together with their friends. Relevant.

Participating in class discussions with interactive anchor charts. Relevant.

Hands-on word work activities that tie into what they are learning to read. Relevant.

Doing fun things like feeding sharks and gators as a word work activity in an interactive notebook. Yup, you guessed it. Relevant.

Adding some laughs to learning with some fun puns doesn’t hurt the learning process either. 😉 After all, research shows the connection of our memories with emotional experiences. (I have no research paper to point to on that one. It is researched-based though. I recall reading up on it many times in my college days. You’ve probably heard that before too).

Now, I know, I know, I know. No prep printables have their place. Sometimes, you need something for a quick review, homework, for a filler, etc. I get it. I am not saying those don’t have their place, but I am just trying to say its important kids get plenty of kinesthetic, relevant opportunities to master important things like vowel teams. The main point I am trying to make is worksheets should be kept in moderation, and children need more than just worksheets.

Vocabulary cards are also very handy. They can be used for self-checking and more. Some other ideas include putting them in alphabetical order, games like go fish and memory, matching rhyming words, and whatever else you can dream up. Cards like this are just handy and versatile. 🙂

Now this unit is HUGE. It is over 500 pages! Here is some organization inspiration. Baggies are my best friend, for real. I write on each bag what is inside to keep my sanity. 🙂 I like to keep it all in one spot (in the large coral container, minus the dice. When I plan on using these, I place them in a smaller bin like the shoe box container, and the reading center is ready to rock and roll.

If we want students to become fluent readers and writers, giving them relevant hands-on word work experiences, then we got to keep it relevant to young learners. That is what my vowel team bundled unit is all about. Making it relevant. Engaging. And ultimately, giving students a firm foundation in phonics to enable them to be fluent readers and writers. Click the picture below to learn more about this resource.

You can find these in the store as a big bundle and individually.

Vowel Team Bundle

Vowel Team Word Work Cards

Vowel Team Puzzles

Vowel Team Printables

Vowel Team Interactive Notebook

Vowel Team Anchor Charts

Vowel Team Games

Don’t miss out! Get a free set of short vowel and long vowel task cards by joining my free newsletter here. With the free newsletter, you will receive helpful tips, freebies, and more!

Thanks for stopping by The Candy Class.

Jolene 🙂

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6 08, 2014

Engaging Alphabet Activities, Ideas & a Free Alphabet Flip Book!

By Jolene|2019-09-18T17:18:20-05:00August 6th, 2014|phonics|0 Comments

Alphabet Activities and Ideas

Hi everyone! Today, I wanted to share some engaging alphabet activities and ideas to help students learn those letters and beginning sounds. Ideally, all first graders should come to class knowing these. Even in kindergarten, they really should know these. However, you know there is always at least one that is having a hard time with this very important foundational MUST. It is for that reason that I have a bit of an obsession with scouting alphabet activities for children to help them get over this hurdle. And well, maybe it has grown kind of unnatural, lol! I mean, giving a lady stink eye because she grabbed that Beanie Baby at the yard sale that stood for the missing letter I needed for my alphabet stuffed toy collection might have been overboard, lol! Sorry lady, but I saw it first! Or getting excited like a kid to see a bin of tiny knick knack toys that might help complete my collection of small alphabet manipulatives at my age is not very becoming, haha! Ok, so I have an abnormality with the alphabet. But maybe it is not. See, I want to see all kids succeed, and if they are going to succeed, they need their alphabet foundation to be solid. I believe it is important to find multiple ways to teach the alphabet to keep it interesting for students struggling in this area.

With that said, here is some alphabet teaching inspiration to keep that alphabet instruction engaging, hands-on, and fun! I also have a free alphabet resource to share with you also.

Activity #1 Alphabet Stuffed Toys

Stuffed Animals to Represent Alphabet Letters

These are handy for the letter of the week or letter of the day. You can let those who are struggling to learn their letters hold them too! You can use these as part of a sorting activity. Students can lay the pictures that make the same sound as the alligator by the alligator doll. You can have students place them in alphabetical order. I did my collecting of these at yard sales.

Activity #2 Alphabet Scavenger Hunt

Students do a scavenger hunt for alphabet letters.

Snag up some small notebooks. I snagged up a pack at the Dollar Tree with several in one pack. Students can use them to record words they find that start with that letter. They can also illustrate some of the words too.

Activity #3 Alphabet Art

Add cups of small items in an alphabet center for students to use to form the letter of the day (or week). Then have them make a textured rubbing later on after it is dried. Sorry for no pic on that one yet.

Activity #4 Alphabet Formation with Toys

Forming Alphabet Letters with Toys

Have them line up those toys on a letter card! This duals as a fun sensory activity, and helps students who are struggling with remembering how to form those alphabet letters.

Activity #5 Beaded Letter Chains

Students form alphabet letters with bead chains

Another method similar to the toy formation is to to use some pony beads to form bead chains in different sizes. Students can then use them to form letters. For struggling students, you can provide some letter mats for them to form them on top.

Here is the different size bead chains I used for the letters. You will want multiples of each size, of course! If your unsure on what sizes to create, if you do have some letter mats, you can use those to help you make the different sizes needed.

Activity #5 Alphabet Cards

Child with alphabet cards

I know this is nothing super original, but I just wanted to remind you how easy it is to create alphabet games with a deck of alphabet cards. All you need is two cards for each letter. These are a must-have for playing a game of go-fish or match. Easy to set-up. Easy to store. Effective and fun! You can also get some letter cards and some with the beginning sound pictures and have students play some sort of matching game with those. For more of a challenge, if you got some pictures of animals and things that represent a beginning sound with no letter, students can match letters to those. You can usually snag up a set of alphabet cards for a $1 too, so very cheap! 🙂

Activity #6 Alphabet Manipulatives

Students can have multiple, small trinket toys that represent targeted letters. Students can sort them by beginning sound by simply matching them by a letter card. Students can have an alphabet journal and illustrate one of these under each letter too!

Activity #7 Alphabet Shaped Flip Books

Students enjoy creating alphabet books! The ones I created have 12 different activities for each letter. If you don’t have time for that many activities for each letter, you can always choose from the different activities easily. They can stand solo as a book or be used in an interactive notebook. Best of all, you get a lot of activities stored on just a single page in an interactive notebook! It also really helps because students can revisit their interactive notebooks and take ownership of their work because it becomes a published work. You can find the alphabet bundle by clicking here.

Click here or on the picture to link to the Alphabet Book Bundle

Find the Alphabet Books Bundle here

Activity #8 Alphabet Soup

This is a very popular activity (and I am not sure who came up with it, so I can give them credit). Put some magnetic letters in a bowl or pot, give students some spoons, and let them scoop up letters. Their response to what they scoop up is very versatile. Students can then write the letters, form the letters with some clay, or form words with the letters. They could also collect all the letter a’s to make a big letter a. So many possibilities!