Here are five activities for practicing beginning word sounds for kids who like to be active!

Five (Active!) Activities for Practicing Beginning Sounds

We have been practicing the beginning sounds of words with Owen (turning 5 in May).  He’s desperate to learn to read (so he can play Scrabble on Daddy’s phone!), plus he has two older brothers that he wants to keep up with!  He is probably my most workbook oriented child, but even a 4 year old who likes workbooks can’t write for very long at a time.  So we’ve been finding active ways to work on school.

Activity #1:  Label the house with post-it notes.  Give your child a pad of post-it notes and a washable marker and tell him or her to label things with the letter they start with.  Owen LOVED this!

Five (Active!) Activities for Practicing Beginning Sounds

Gresham (2nd grade) begged to join in after he finished his language work, except that he wanted to write the whole word.  This is not really a skill he needs to work on, but he sure had a blast using post-it notes!  We keep finding his labels EVERYWHERE, and I smile every time I see one.  And the side benefit of this is that now I know what words we need to work on spelling since we had a “towl” in the “kichen.” 🙂

Activity #2:  Go on a scavenger hunt.  Go around the house and look for items that start with specific letters.  We did this for the consonants that Owen has learned in his phonics book so far.

Five (Active!) Activities for Practicing Beginning Word Sounds

Activity #3:  Nerf Shoot-out.  Make your own alphabet targets and then shoot them!  I cut up some cereal boxes and quickly made some alphabet letter Nerf targets.

Five (Active!) Activities for Practicing Beginning Sounds

I called out a word, and Owen had to shoot the letter that the words starts with.  Owen thought this was great!  (And so did Gresham who begged to join in on this one too!)

Five (Active!) Activities for Practicing Beginning Word Sounds

Activity #4:  Block Knock-Down.  This is similar to the Nerf game.  Label wooden blocks with alphabet letters using post-it notes or paper and tape.  Line the blocks up on the table.  Call out a word and have your child knock down the correct letter block.  Knocking things down is always a hit at our house!

Activity #5:  “Find the letter” relay.  Foam bathtub letters are perfect for this.  Put a basket of letters on one end of the house.  Call out a word and have your child run to the basket, find the correct letter for the beginning sound, and run back.  Burn off energy and practice letter sounds at the same time!

Five (Active!) Activities for Practicing Beginning Word Sounds

For more reading readiness ideas, check out my Beginning Readers Pinterest board!

  

6 Comments

Post a Comment
  1. Emma @ P is for Preschooler Feb 20, 2014

    Knocking things down is definitely a hit at our house too. These ideas rock! My daughter learns best when she's moving around, so definitely pinning this one! :)

    Reply
  2. Caitlin Mar 30, 2014

    Oh, I love all of these ideas! So many I can sue in my class room. I might not be able to use nerd guns but we can use bean bags!

    Caitlin
    Learning Ahoy!!

    Reply
  3. Liza Traut Jul 17, 2014

    Thanks for all the wonderful ideas

    Reply
  4. Chris Aug 11, 2014

    I teach older 3's, young 4's. These ideas are GREAT!!! I can use just about all of them! My very active boys will loooooove how fun their teacher is!

    Reply
  5. bee Oct 3, 2017

    sorry guns are not appropriate for children to learn to use like a game. they are way too dangerous. Cannot use this in my classroom.

    Reply
  6. Val Dec 31, 2020

    Great ideas! Thanks for sharing!

    Reply

Post a Comment