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Today's blog post will be a quickie. I was just so excited about my latest Target find, I had to share it with my teaching friends! So let's get started with our build a sight word fun!

I knew it was going to be a good trip because this was the first thing I saw when I walked in the door. I could have bought absolutely nothing and seeing this sign would have made my trip worthwhile.

But thankfully that wasn't the case. I did find something. I found a TREASURE in the Dollar Deals section. This might be my most favorite find EVER! These little gems were $3.

So why was this such a big deal?! Well, earlier this week on my Facebook page, I posted an awesome sight word activity that I found from Carolyn at Kindergarten: Holding Hands and Sticking Together. She had her students build sight words using Mega Blocks. You can read her post here.

I loved the idea. I mean, it's pure brilliance to put sight words on TOYS! What kid wouldn't love that?! But, I was SO bummed because I didn't have the blocks to make the center. I had them at one point but now that I need them, I can't find them! Does that happen to anyone else?! Nonetheless, I shared the activity for all those lucky ones that might have the blocks tucked away in their closet.

Here's a picture of what the activity looks like. It's SO easy to prep. I just took a sharpie marker and wrote the letters right on the blocks.I realize not everyone may be able to run out to Target right now (or these may no longer be sold there), so you can also use my affiliate link to purchase your own set for "Build a Sight Word" from Amazon by clicking here.

I made a recording sheet to go with the activity. I want my students to write the words that they worked on. I really like having a recording sheet to go with most of my independent centers. I feel like it holds students accountable for their work. Also, it shows parents what their child is working on at school. So whenever it's possible, I try to include a recording sheet.

Click the picture below or click HERE to download the FREE Build a Sight Word recording sheet.

Thanks for reading along as I gushed about my Build a Sight Word excitement!

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Build a Sight Word (plus recording sheet) | The Printable Princess

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Today's blog post will be a quickie. I was just so excited about my latest Target find, I had to share it with my teaching friends! So let's get started with our build a sight word fun! I knew it was going to be a good trip because this was the first thing I saw when ...

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ABCmouse.com's phonics program helps teach children everything they need to know to become confident readers. With our full online preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten curriculum, children can start wherever they feel most comfortable and progress at their own pace.

The first step in phonics is to learn the names of the letters of the alphabet, both in their lowercase and uppercase forms. On ABCmouse.com, children will learn the alphabet through hundreds of books, games, songs, puzzles, and art activities, and will see and hear examples of many words that start with each letter.

Once children can identify the names of each letter, they can begin learning the most common sounds represented by each of the 26 letters of the alphabet. ABCmouse.com's collection of The Letter Songs A-Z will help children identify those sounds, as will the hundreds of other games and activities such as the Alphabet Bubble Burst game and the book Alphabet in the Park.

Once children have mastered the sounds of each letter, they can learn how to sound out simple words with consonant-vowel-consonant patterns, such as pig, dog, hat, and so on. At ABCmouse.com, we provide hundreds of fun and engaging activities that help teach children to sound out common words as well as common word families (words that have the same ending sounds and letter combinations, such as hot, pot, and not).

To help children learn phonics and other important fundamental reading skills, ABCmouse.com also publishes Tap and Learn™ books, charts, instructional guides and other products, which provide engaging learning experiences based on interactive pen reader technology.

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ABCmouse.com's phonics program helps teach children everything they need to know to become confident readers. With our full online preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten curriculum, children can start wherever they feel most comfortable and progress at their own pace.

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Make a phonics I-Spy discovery bottle for hours of playful literacy fun at home, in the classroom or even when travelling! A great activity for learning beginning letter sounds and matching phonemes to graphemes, for preschoolers to school age kids.

There's been a lot of emphasis in our home recently on learning letter sounds and beginning to sound out small words to read and write independently. The girls are often able to play together and yet use the activity to reach their own independent goals at their own level of ability, which makes me very happy.

I love making resources for them which can be played with and reused any times and that use simple materials from around the home. We have a whole collection of homemade toys, games and resources here that you can check out, to see what we have made so far.

We have made some sets of Baby and Toddler Discovery bottles before, and this time I put together a Phonics Discovery bottle for them to play an I-Spy game at home and when we are out and about, as it is completely self-contained and portable.

I went on a hunt for little objects around the house beginning with each letter of the alphabet and that were small enough to fit through the next of the bottle I had collected. (For UK readers, this is a large Innocent juice bottle, which is nice and spacious for this type of activity!) Many of them are from Playmobil sets, as well as lots of other bits and pieces I've picked up along the way (I'm a miniature-things-hoarder so that helps!)

Once I'd found them all I laid them out and took a photo of everything before it went into the bottle, then printed this image out A4 size for them to use as their guide when they played. I've now laminated this so it will last for future games too.

Next I simply popped the objects into the bottle and added 1/3rd full of dry, coloured rice (still saved and reused from this Golden Cinnamon sensory tub from last Christmas! See this post to see how to dye the rice.) Then the lid was sealed (you can use a glue gun or super-glue) and the contents were shaken to hide them a little.

I quickly wrote out the alphabet and chopped it into small cards and let them choose which one they wanted to start with. Then they had to say the sound out loud (the sound/ phoneme, rather than the letter name/ grapheme) and begin their search for it in the bottle.

Here is this example you can see Pop selecting the letter "m". She said "mmmmmmm" then searched on the photo sheet for an object beginning with that letter (for some sounds I used a few objects, to increase the number in the bottle.) She chose the moon, then she shook and turned the bottle until she found it and pointed it out.

Cakie enjoyed playing the game at this level too, even though she is confident in all her letter sounds. There is plenty of fun simply playing this as an I-spy game! She wanted to do more with it though, and decided to try and write down the name of everything she had found in a list, sounding it out as she did so. Another way to play this would be to provide word cards for each object contained in the bottle for beginning or more confident readers to pick out a card at random and then read it and look for that object to find. That is where we will take this game next with Cakie when she is keen to play it again.

I can't wait to take this with us on our next journey or when we go to an appointment in the future as it's sure to be a great boredom buster!

What else could you make? I love the possibility of discovery bottles!

If you liked this idea you will love looking through our Playful Literacy collection here!

Check out our Literacy Pinterest Board too

Cakie: 5.2

Pop: 3.7

Bean: 1.8

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Phonics I-Spy Discovery Bottle - The Imagination Tree

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Make a phonics I-Spy discovery bottle for hours of playful literacy fun at home, in the classroom or even when travelling! A great activity for learning beginning letter sounds and matching phonemes to graphemes, for preschoolers to school age kids.

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This letter sounds game is an excellent way to get kids excited about learning. Practice letter identification and phonics while smacking letters!

We really love this Smack the Number Game and so do our readers, so I came up with a version that would help kids learn letter sounds too. This one was a lot of fun too, but also very effective for teaching letter sounds as well.
Materials Needed:
Post it Notes

Small fly swatter
Activity Prep:
1. Write one letter on each post it note. I decided to work on 9 letters. Choose whichever letters you would like to work on.
Activity Details:
Spread the post it notes all over the work surface. Then call out a letter sound and have your child identify the letter that makes that sound. Once they identify what the letter is, they should smack it with the fly swatter. For example, I said "fffff" and Evan would try to quickly determine which letter makes that sound and as soon as he identified it, he smacked the letter with the swatter. This process repeats itself until you or your child would like to stop.

That's it. Easy peasy! But very effective at really helping your child listen to sounds and make the connection between the letter and the sound it makes.

Here are some more alphabet games you may like!
Snowball Throw Alphabet Game 5 Letters in a Row Alphabet Game Rescue the Alphabet Game

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This letter sounds game is an excellent way to get kids excited about learning. Practice letter identification and phonics while smacking letters!

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This letter sounds Kaboom Game is a fun and simple way to help reinforce letter sounds with kids. You only need craft sticks and a marker!

The other day, I came across this post from The Star Spangled Planner about a fun game called Kaboom. She uses it to work on math facts, sight words and a variety of more advanced concepts, but I thought it would be a great way to work on letter sounds with Evan.

Kaboom is super easy to prepare and play. My son really enjoyed it! It also lasts for as long as you want it to. It would be a great addition to a literacy center.
Materials Needed: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
How to Set Up This Alphabet Game

1. Write a letter on one end of each craft stick. I already had alphabet stickers on craft sticks so I just used those.

2. Take out a few additional craft sticks and Write "KABOOM" on one end of those. I used an orange marker to highlight the word. I recommend using 4 KABOOM sticks in addition to the 26 letter sticks.

Playing the Letter Sounds KABOOM Game

I put all of the sticks letter side down into the cup. This way we couldn't see the letters or the sticks with "KABOOM" on them.

The first player will choose a stick from the cup. Then they will identify the letter by name and tell the sound the letter makes. This repeats for each person playing the game.

When a person draws a stick with "KABOOM" on it they have to put all their sticks back in the cup. This may seem a bit harsh, but it happens often enough that it will happen to each player at least once.

When we played the game, I set a timer and when it went off the person with the most sticks won. I think this would be a good way to do it in a classroom as well.

While we were playing the game, we also tried to name a word that started with the letter on each stick. I help Evan come up with a word if he can't think of one on his own. This isn't necessary, but just another way to reinforce letter sounds while tying them to frequently used words.

There are so many other concepts you can reinforce with Kaboom. I will definitely use this game again!

Head over to my Alphabet Activities page for even more fun, hands-on letter learning ideas!

Here are some related alphabet activities I think you will enjoy!
Alphabet Battle Letter Learning Game Letter Sounds Alphabet Game Smack the Letter Game

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This letter sounds Kaboom Game is a fun and simple way to help reinforce letter sounds with kids. Your kids will have a blast playing this alphabet game!

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Try these free alphabet games to help your child remember letter names!
(This post contains affiliate links.)
Have our seen our Four in a Row games? Kids take turns reading or answering a math fact and dotting their answer. The first to get four in a row, wins.

I've modified this simple game to review many different skills, from learning to read to practicing addition facts.

A reader recently asked for a new Four in a Row game - one that helps kids practice naming letters.

So here we go!
How to play

Grab two Do-a-Dot markers or counters in two different colors. Another option is to grab two different colored markers.

Take turns naming a letter. When you name a letter correctly, dot, cover, or color it.

The first to get four in a row, wins!

I would recommend this game for kids who know most of their letters but need a bit of review.

And if you want to play the game as it's designed, your child will need to have a little understanding of strategy.

It also helps if she can count to four. 😉

Thanks to the letter of the wee k we did when he was three, my Five doesn't need practice recognizing his letters.

But he has a little sister.

I've been doing Letter of the Week with my just-turned-Three, so she had fun doing these pages with me. But we didn't worry about getting four in a row. She can't count groups of objects larger than three, and she's not ready for any kind of strategy.

Not a problem! We still had fun taking turns naming and dotting the letters. In fact, we named every letter on the board. Yay for extra practice!
In the download you'll find four-in-a-row games for

Uppercase A-E

Uppercase H-J

Uppercase K-O

Uppercase P-T

Uppercase U-Z

Uppercase A-Z

Lowercase a-e

Lowercase h-j

Lowercase k-o

Lowercase p-t

Lowercase u-z

Lowercase a-z

Blank board (write your own!)

Have fun!
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Free alphabet games to promote letter recognition - The Measured Mom

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Try these free alphabet games to help your child remember letter names! (This post contains affiliate links.) Have our seen our Four in a Row games? Kids take turns reading or answering a math fact and dotting their answer. The first to get four in a row, wins.

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Rhyming is such a crucial part of reading. Not to mention it can be plain out fun and silly at times. Banana-nana-fo-fana (you now have that stuck in your head, sorry). Here is a super easy activity that encourages rhyming, word families, and practices breaking down words to read.

Supplies:

Cut your paper towel roll into sections.

Write the ending sound of a word on a section. You can write another word fragment on other sides, too. I wrote "an" and "at" on this one.

Now write letters or the first sounds of words on another piece of cut tube. You can throw in some weird ones that will not make words to get some giggles, too.

While I was writing, I had some help. Little sister loved helping out with writing all over her piece. She is actually a lefty, so this is photo is hilarious to me. At least she is interested. 😉

Pull out one end of the hanger from the bar.

Slide your tube pieces on and replace the hanger end back inside the bar.

Now your child can spin the first letter (or sound) of the word to make different words.

You can practice rhyming as you go through them. It is fun to sing out the words and maybe dance a bit, too. But we are pretty active around here and I am sure your house is just as wild spirited.

My favorite thing about this is that it transports so easily. I know we can grab it and take it to another room without messing it up and causing a meltdown. It hangs easily on the toilet paper roll holder so we can play while we take our extra long potty breaks. It keeps my kids engaged while I do things in the kitchen and even can hang on the back of mommy's seat in the van for playing while we run errands.

I hope you enjoy this activity as much as we do.

Kim is a contributing writer for No Time For Flash Cards, a mom to a toddler, a preschooler, a first grader and a foster parent, too. She juggles her day by trying out fun activities and crafts with the kids. After all, she is just a big kid herself. See what she has been up to over at Mom Tried It.

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Rhyming is such a crucial part of reading. Not to mention it can be plain out fun and silly at times. Banana-nana-fo-fana (you now have that stuck in your head, sorry). Here is a super easy activity that encourages rhyming, word families, and practices breaking down words to read.

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ABCya! * First Grade Learning Games, Ages 6 - 7

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Kids LOVE our free online games! Fly dragons, build dream houses, and explore while practicing addition, reading, and more 1st grade skills. Play now!

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Here is our First Grade Level 1 Phonics Listening Activity. First choose the worksheet below and then choose the phonics audio from within the media player. The media player has thumbnails of the worksheet below to match.

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First Grade Level 1 Phonics Audio Activity, for 1st grade

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First Grade Level 1 Phonics Listening Activity, Here is our First Grade Level 1 Phonics Listening Activity. First choose the worksheet below and then choose the audio from within the media player. The media player has thumbnails of the worksheet below to match.

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Play Beanbag Letter Blend Toss | Activity | Education.com

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Help your first grade reader master those letter blends like "ch" and "sh" with this memorable and hilarious beanbag toss game.

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This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
PS PK K 1 2 3 *
(This post contains affiliate links.)
Elkonin boxes are a wonderful tool to help kids learn phonological awareness!

Have you heard of Elkonin boxes? These simple tools help kids build phonological awareness by helping them divide words into their individual phonemes.

Some quick vocabulary review:

phonological awareness - the ability to hear differences in the ways words sound. If children have phonological awareness, they can identify beginning sounds, count syllables, and rhyme.

phonemes - the individual sounds within a word. For example, "rake" has four letters but only three sounds - /r/,/ā/,/k/.

Read it: 21 Games to Develop Phonological Awareness

Elkonin boxes help kids hear phonemes. They're a fantastic way to develop an important pre-reading skill.

Here's how they work!

Print and cut apart the Elkonin boxes. ( Laminate for durability if desired.) Then grab small manipulatives that are fun to use. We used these colorful glass gems.

Place a card in front of your child. Start with a simple one that has only two boxes.

'Today we're going to say the picture on each card and listen for the sounds in each word. We're going to put one gem in a box each time we hear a sound. Let's start with this first one. What picture do you see?"

"Bee."

"Right. So when we say the word bee and separate it into its sounds, it sounds like this: /b/ /eee/. I can put one gem here for /b/ and one gem here for /eee/. Can you point to each gem as I say the sounds again? /b/ /eeee/."

Continue the activity with the other words that have just two phonemes. /b/ /ō/.

Move to words with three phonemes if your child is ready. /m/ /oo/ /n/

Finish with the words that have four phonemes. Always remember that we're counting the sounds we hear, not the letters we'd spell. Elkonin boxes are an oral activity. /k/ /l/ /o/ /k/

I pulled these cards out for my Four, who knows his letters very well (thanks to our letter of the week activities), understands concept of word (because of our work with voice to print cards), and is even starting to read simple sight word books.

But.
Another way to use Elkonin boxes
These were hard for him! It surprised me. He wasn't able to isolate the sounds in each word, but he was willing to watch me do the activity and point to each sound as I named it. We'll do the activity that way for now, and I think that one day soon he'll be ready to try it himself.
Read it: Hear beginning, middle, and ending sounds with these clip cards

Name the picture and a particular sound. For example, say the word "moon" and tell your child to show where he'd mark the sound "/n/". He should put a gem in the last box on the card.

Grab your free cards below!

P.S. The download contains cards with images AND with clip art (in both color and black and white). Make sure you mark the pages you want to print so you don't waste ink.

p. 3-11 (real images)

p. 12-20 (color clip art)

p. 21-29 (black & white clip art)

BUILD A STRONG READING FOUNDATION

Watch the member workshop!

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This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. PS PK K 1 2 3 * (This post contains affiliate links.) Elkonin boxes are a wonderful tool to help kids learn phonological awareness! Have you heard of Elkonin boxes?

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reviewing beginning and ending consonants

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1st grade phonics worksheets, consonants, S blends, Digraphs

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1st grade phonics worksheets, reviewing short vowels, reviewing beginning and ending consonants, S blends, consonant digraphs ch, wh, th, sh, ph, ck, voiceless th, voiced th, consonant trigraphs, soft c, soft g - Check the listening area for this level to match with worksheets.

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Phonics games for first grade offer an incredible fusion of education and entertainment. They are affordable, engaging, and significantly effective in teaching crucial reading skills. If you are looking to give your child a well-rounded reading education, these games should definitely be in your toolkit.

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These games help pre-K children practice Letter Sound learning in a fun, hands-on way.

Sound Cups

Use 26 disposable clear punch cups and label each cup with a letter. Letter cup labels can be downloaded below. Collect a set of small trinket objects (you can ask parents and friends to send things in), such as plastic lizard, small block, watch, plastic frog, bandaid, necklace, button, dice. Place the trinkets in a basket. Children sort each trinket into a letter cup by its beginning sound.

You can use all 26 cups at one time, or select 3-4 letter cups at a time for children to focus on. When searching for items to go in the cups, look for dollar store mini toys (especially packs of animals and bugs), look at doll house miniatures, browse craft stores for mini items.
Download: Letter Cup Labels

Erase the Sound

Draw a picture on a dry erase lap board. In the example below, I drew a snowman. Call children up one at the time to erase something that begins with something in the picture. In this picture, children can erase something that begins with H (hat), something that begins with B (buttons), something that begins with N (nose). Continue until everything is erased.

Mystery Bag

Place three objects beginning with the same letter in a bag (such as ball, bug, and button for B). Have a child pulls each item out of the bag and name each item. Have the class guess the "mystery letter".

Guess Who?

Say three words and have the kids guess whose name begins with the same sound as those three words. For example, call out:

The class would guess Levi. If you have more than one child in your class (maybe Levi, Lucy, and Layton) who start with that letter sound, the class can name all of them.

I have prepared a list of words for each letter that you can use for your students. Download the list below.
Download: Beginning Letter Sounds List

Monster Names

Have kids stand, stomp, and growl when you say their "Monster Name". Replace the first letter of each child's name with the letter M. For example, Braden's name would become "Mad Monster Maden" and Ashlyn's name would become "Mad Monster Mashlyn".

Say Two Words

Say two words, and have kids stand up if the words begin with the same sound. Have them sit down if they do not. For example,
cat - cow (stand up)
hat - goat (sit down)

Letter Sounds Listening Games

Children listen for beginning sounds in words and use bingo markers to stamp a letter each time they hear the letter sound. Get the printable game here: Letter Sounds Listening Games.

Letter Sounds Activity Cards

Children look at the picture, say the word, and find the letter that matches the beginning sound. They mark the cards by clipping it or marking it with a chip. Get the printable game here: Letter Sounds Activity Cards.

Letter Tile Mats

Children match letter tiles to the pictures on the mats by identifying the beginning sound of the words. Get the printable game here: Letter Tile Mats.

More Resources

These are available in my shop.

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These games help pre-K children practice Letter Sound learning in a fun, hands-on way. Use 26 disposable clear punch cups and label each cup with a letter. Letter cup labels can be downloaded below. Collect a set of small trinket objects (you can ask parents and friends to send things in), such as plastic lizard, small block, watch, plastic frog, bandaid, necklace, button, dice.

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Practice letter recognition and letter sounds with a fun game that gets kids moving. I get commissions for purchases made through affiliate links in this post.

Letter Sounds Race

Clear some open floor space - the more space, the better. Place letter magnets on one side of the room. Place a magnet board or a magnetic pan on the other side of the room. (Our easel has a magnetic dry erase board, so we used that.)

Have your child stand next to the magnet board (opposite side of the room from all of the letters). Explain to your child that you will call out a letter sound and he should run and find the letter. Then, pick up the letter and place it on the magnet board.

Tell your child to run and pick up the letter that says ___. (For example, in a really excited voice say: Ready... set... go pick up the letter that says /b/.)

If your child is just starting to learn letter sounds, try one of these suggestions:

Call out letters instead of letter sounds. Say: Run and get the letter B. B says /b/. Repeat the sound a few times.

Ask your child the letter sounds: What sound does the letter B make? Your child answers.Then say: B says /b/. Go get the letter B.

Mix it up. Ask the letter sounds of letters you know your child knows. Tell her the letter sounds of the ones she doesn't know yet. Have her repeat the letter sounds to you.

For 20 more ways to learn letters, check out my collaborative ebook ABCs and 123s.

Variations with the Magnet Board

You could also add another learning element with the magnetic white board. Instead of just placing the letter magnets on the board at random (which my son really enjoyed), write letters or words on the board.

Write uppercase letters on the magnetic board. You could write them in alphabetical order or mix them up. Have your child match the letter magnets to the letters on the board.

Write lowercase letters on the magnetic board. Again, you could write them in alphabetical order or mix them up. Have your child match the letter magnets to the letters on the board.

Write words on the board. Make sure you have enough letter magnets to cover the words you choose. I wrote the word ball, but we only had one l. You could have your child run to get each letter individually. For example, say: Let's spell the word dog. Go get the letter D. Or you could have him get all of the letters at once. Say: Let's spell the word dog. D-O-G. Go get letters D, O, and G.

Make this about moving as much as possible. Encourage running to get the letters. My son thought this was great fun. He eventually became more interested in matching the letter magnets with the letters in the words and stopped running, but that's okay, too.

More Ideas for Learning Letters
to the Inspiration Laboratories newsletter. Each issue has exclusive hands-on science explorations for children, a recap of our latest activities, and special resources selected just for you! This post was originally published on February 14, 2013.

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Letter Sounds Race | Inspiration Laboratories

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Practice letter recognition and letter sounds with a fun game that gets kids moving.

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We LOVE to play with our letters with these free kids printable Alphabet Phonics Clip Cards! Do you love to play with your letters, too?

Free Kids Printable Alphabet Phonics Clip Cards

Have you ever used clip cards before? These are a REALLY fun way to practice skills and make the drill a whole lot more fun.

How do you use them? I'm so glad you asked! Once you print them and cut them out, you can laminate them if you choose. Then, you hand them over to your favorite little learner with a pile of clothes pins.

For these cards, kids are looking to see which picture begins with the letter shown on the card. For example, "Z is for" ... Zebra! So your child should put the clothes pin on the picture of the zebra.

Kids LOVE to do these and they'll enjoy them over and over!

Get your set of Alphabet Phonics Clip Cards!

Are you ready to print and play this fun game?

Click here to download and print:

Download our Printable Alphabet Phonics Clip Cards!

I hope you enjoy these Free Printable Alphabet Phonics Clip Cards from Little Learning Lovies and Kids Activities Blog!

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Free Kids Printable Alphabet Phonics Clip Cards

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We LOVE to play with our letters with these free kids printable Alphabet Phonics Clip Cards! Do you love to play with your letters, too? Have you ever used clip cards before? These are a REALLY fun way to practice skills and make the drill a whole lot more fun.

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An alphabet ball game educational activity, that's all about movement! Carolyn of The Pleasantest Thing is sharing an activity to move & learn!
My four year old is in the pre-reading stage where he likes to ask how to spell words.

And he loves to ask "what letter does (insert anything we are talking about) begin with?"

I came up with this alphabet ball game as a way to have some fun with his exploration of the alphabet.

We have now added "Alphabet Ball" into our mix of outdoor games.

It's a great way to play with letters and sounds in a pressure-free atmosphere.

It is also a game for kids who love to throw, kick, chase after, or catch balls!

And the best part is that all you need is a ball!
Download Learn a Letter Week of Activities PDF Free!
The Rules to The Alphabet Ball Game are Simple.

The adult calls out a letter, and the child responds with a word that begins with that letter.

After the word is called, the adult tosses the ball to the child. The child catches the ball, and calls out a new letter.

When the adult responds with an appropriate word, the child throws the ball back to the adult.

To add a little more challenge: You can create a rule that the same word can not be repeated. Or that you can not repeat a letter until all the letters have been used.

The more active you make the alphabet ball game, the more fun it is.

You can kick the ball to each other.

Do wild throws (I do this unintentionally sometimes), making your little one dive to catch the ball.

Or instead of throwing the ball when your child gives you the correct word, you can run after them to try to tag them with the ball.

The more giggles you can get while playing alphabet ball, the better.

That way, your child will be too happy playing to feel any stress about naming the right letters.

Variations for Different Topics and Ages

We have tried several variations of this game to continue the fun (and the learning).

Rhyming Ball: Instead of a letter, we called out a word for the other person to rhyme before we throw the ball.

Opposite Ball: Have the adult call out a word, and the child call out the opposite, and then throw the ball to the child.

Next letter: This version is a little tricky for pre-readers, but it would work well with older kids who are more familiar with reading. The adult calls out a letter and the child then names a word that starts with the next letter. So when the adult calls out "B," the child would call out "cat." Honestly, this game can trip me up sometimes.

ABC ball: Younger children who know the alphabet, but are not at the stage of sounding out letters can call out the next letter. So the adult would say "B" and the child would respond with "C". I found this really works best when sticking close to the beginning of the alphabet. Or if you repeat the alphabet with your child, pausing right before the letter they are supposed to name.

Baby ball: Kids who are too young to know the alphabet still can have fun with this game, by having the adult do all the talking. Babies especially like rhyming. So the adult can call out rhyming words while rolling the ball back and forth with the baby. Crawlers are also very eager to chase after any loose balls and clap while enjoying the merriment!

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Alphabet Ball Learning Game for Preschoolers

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A fun alphabet ball learning game for preschoolers with variations for learning different things and for different ages of kids (including babies).

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We had so much fun with this Rainbow Hop Letter Sounds Game! This life-size board game is a fantastic way to move and learn alphabet sounds and counting!

Evan still prefers to do learning activities that allow him to move (a lot) while learning. Even when we play table top games that use dice, he has to throw the dice across the room and run to see what number he rolled and then come back to the table. I thought it would be really fun if I could make a life-size board game that allowed Evan the chance to move his whole body while playing. That is how I came up with this move and learn letter sounds game!
Materials Needed to Make the Rainbow Hop Letter Sounds Game
Construction paper - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple - a couple of sheets of each color

Black marker

Die (dice)

Bowl or some other circle template
Activity Prep:
1. I used a cereal bowl to trace 2 circles on each sheet of paper. They just fit on the paper. I used 2 sheets of paper for each color, so I had 4 circles of each color. This was only 24 letters, so I didn't have y and z. I could have made 2 more, but we didn't have enough room without squishing the rainbow together even more than it already was. Next time, I will do this in another location where we have more room and I will add the remaining 2 letters.

2. Put one set of circles in rainbow order and repeat this 3 more times.

3. Write one letter on each circle. I chose to use lowercase letters because Evan needs more practice with them.

4. Lay the circles out on the floor in the shape of a rainbow.
How to play the Rainbow Hop Letter Sounds Game
The child should stand right in front of the letter "a" and toss the die (dice) to find out how many spaces to move. They can walk over each letter or hop like Evan did. Once, they have moved that many spaces, they should name the letter and tell you the sound it makes.

You can play this with more than one player as well. Evan had even more fun when he played against his dad!

We plan to play this again and again. It is quick and easy to pull out and play. Game time is only a few minutes, so it keeps Evan's attention the whole time. It is such a great way to practice alphabet letter sounds and counting while moving!

Here are some more rainbow themed activities for kids!
Letter Sounds Alphabet Game Rainbow Patterns with Blocks Alphabet Letter Matching Rainbow Thread a Froot Loop Rainbow Tissue Paper Rainbow Suncatcher

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We had so much fun with this Rainbow Hop Letter Sounds Game! This life-size board game is a fantastic way to move and learn alphabet sounds and counting!

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Please see Starfall's how-to-teach-reading page, Learn to Read with Phonics, Fluency, and Comprehension, and print the Free Phonics Printouts for children. Starfall™ books, games, movies, and songs follow a research-based method of systematic phonics starting with consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words. Emergent readers gain confidence as they progress to long vowels and other letter-sound relationships such as digraphs.

Brought to you by Zac the Rat™, Peg the Hen™, and Gus the Duck™.
Starfall™ Where Children Have Fun Learning to Read™

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Learn to Read with Phonics | Starfall Education

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Starfall's movies, games, and ebooks create an environment where children have fun as they learn to read. We use a proven sequential phonics method.

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Teach your child to read with our phonics video tutorials for first grade level 1. These videos will focus on the H consonant digraphs (th, wh, ch, sh), S blends and more. The child will develop skills in blending sounds to read simple words and sentences.

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The 100th Day of School is an especially big math time in kindergarten, first, and second grade, when kids are starting their addition and subtraction adventures. But that doesn't mean that words can't be part of the celebration, too!

Here's a great word challenge for early elementary kids. Using common word endings such as -en, -ing, and -at, you and your child can create ten groups of words-a hundred in all-that boost reading and spelling skills, and even build confidence. Once the 100th Day is over, try using this entertaining activity as a way to pass the time on road trips.

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100 Words: Word Building | Activity | Education.com

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The 100th Day of School is an especially big math time in kindergarten, first, and second grade, when kids are starting their addition and subtraction adventures. But that doesn't mean that words can't be part of the celebration, too! Here's a great word challenge for early elementary kids.

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It's not shiny or digital, but hopscotch is classic fun for little kids. You probably remember playing it with numbers from one to ten, but have you tried a variation with letters? As your child prepares for reading, try getting creative with movement and letters with this fun game. Here are two variations of "letter-sound" hopscotch that can build your child's phonics skills and help them jump right into reading.

See this activity in a set: Phonics

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Play Letter-Sound Hopscotch! | Activity | Education.com

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It's not shiny or digital, but hopscotch is classic fun for little kids. You probably remember playing it with numbers from one to ten, but have you tried a variation with letters? As your child prepares for reading, try getting creative with movement and letters with this fun game.

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Digraphs are letter pairs that together make a single sound. There are three "biggies" to watch for: "sh," "ch," and "th." As experienced readers, adults take these combinations for granted, but for early readers, they can be pretty frustrating. After all, kids only just learned the sound of "s" and "h." It can seem downright unfair to them that these letters make an entirely different sound when they're together!

Fortunately, you can help, and make it fun, too! Here's an activity that gives your child some good practice hunting for digraphs around the house, then turns them into a fun game the whole family can play.

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Digraph Bingo | Activity | Education.com

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Digraphs are letter pairs that together make a single sound. There are three "biggies" to watch for: "sh," "ch," and "th." As experienced readers, adults take these combinations for granted, but for early readers, they can be pretty frustrating. After all, kids only just learned the sound of "s" and "h."

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Does your child love scavenger hunts? Whether they're finding sunglasses or sunflowers, kids seem to enjoy searching for treasure. Play this thrilling scavenger hunt with your first grader to give him some fun consonant blend sound practice!

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Teaching Consonant Blends | Activity | Education.com

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Does your child love scavenger hunts? Whether they're finding sunglasses or sunflowers, kids seem to enjoy searching for treasure. Play this thrilling scavenger hunt with your first grader to give him some fun consonant blend sound practice!

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Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down for beginning sounds

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Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down for beginning sounds

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Early Elementary

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Teaching Tools | Resources for Teachers from Scholastic