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Literacy
This activity provides a multitude of learning opportunities. Children can connect the bricks in alphabetical order or connect letters to spell words.They are also working on leter recognition, the shape and position of the brick is also imporant and immediately encourages them to consider which letters are ascenders (eg d,b,t) and which letters are descenders (eg y,g,j). The fine motor skills surrounding this style of activity are invaluable. There also provides a great opportunity to notice the allograph (shape of each letter).
Duplo letters
Word smash
Writing some high frequency words and adding a small ball of playdough to each word makes this a super fun reading and word recognition activity. You can call out a word, children can find the word and smash the piece of playdough. A gerat gross motor destructive literacy activity!
Car park
Can children park the correct tricky word car into the correct parking space? A brilliant high frequency word activity.
Pirates say 'Ar'
To explore the 'ar' digraph from phase 3, why not add some 'ar' word coins to a tray of pirate treasure! A digraph is two letters that combined together correspond to one sound (phoneme). You culd extend this activity by writing some simple sentences with the ar words uncovered in the treasure.
To explore the 'ow' digraph in a fun and memorable way, write some 'ow' words on plasters. The 'ow' sound is the ''hurty'' sound. A brilliantly memorable way to embed this digraph.
'Ee' digraph fun! Looking at the 'ee' digraph from phase 3, you can have some fun printing some painted digraphs to create words. Using a staple or glue gun, place two toilet rolls next to one another and fold them to create the two ee shape. Then dip the toilet rolls into a tray of paint and print onto words. Have fun reading the words you create!
'Ow' sound
'Ee' sound
A fun activity for children learning to listen to initial phonemes (sounds) and recognise the corresponding grapheme (letter). Can they match the image to the initial sound to create flowers? This is a fun and simple matching activity exploring some of those initial sounds.
Write some letters of the alphabet on a shallow tray using a board mark pen. Then add some stick back plastic over the top to stop the letters washing away. Pour some water mixed with black food dye into the tray until all letters are concealed. Using a glass with a flat bottom, move it around the tray and hunt for letters. As the bottom of the glass presses on a letter, the black water is moved away and through the glass the letter is exposed!
Sight word stamps
This is an easy way to create your own sight word stamps. Stick some letters (backwards) to a craft stick. Children can paint each letter and stamp away! A fun way to practice those sight words.
Flower sounds
Magic 8 ball
Pop it
Push the phoneme activity with a fidget popit toy. Push the phoneme is a great way to encourage phonemic awareness in a fun and active way. Phonemic awareness is the ability to notice, think about and work with the individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. There are 44 phonemes in total.
Reveal the corresponding upper case letter by using a pipette to add some water to the tray. Fold some kitchen towel over, writing the lower case letter on top and concealing the upper case letter underneath. Secure to the tray with double sided tape. Let children use a pipette to drop water onto each piece of kitchen towel to magically reveal the concealed letter underneath.
An easy way to create tricky word scratch cards. Can you scratch the sticker to reveal the tricky word? Packs of scratch card stickers are available via my resources store.
Letter reveal
Scratch cards
An easy fun set up to support letter recognition. Teaming a gross motor activity, crossing the midline, hand eye coordination and phonics fun. This can be a great one for ordering letters in children's names.
The queen always needs her umberella for the 'qu' digraph from phase 3. So using images of the queen and cocktail umbrellas to place next to her is a fun way to remmber how these two letters go together when working on this digraph!
A digraph is a combination of two letters that make one sound ( a phoneme).A digraph can be made up of vowels and consonants.
Creating letters wands like these using craft sticks and wooden lowercase letters can be used in a variety of ways. Heading off on a letter hunt around the home, place wands together to create words, using them to find a missing letter in a word or to match letters to objects around the home.
Letter wands
Phonics smash
'Qu' sound
This is one of my favourite home learning literacy activities. Write some tricky words, spellings, letters or words on pieces of paper and hide them around the home. Then sit back and enjoy a cup of tea with your walkie talkie next to you! Listen as your child finds and reads each word to you over the walkie talkie! A fun and engaging activity to encourage reading whilst you get to put your feet up!
Walkie talkie phonics
This is a great fine motor activity to practice tricky words. This could easily be adapted for common exception words, CVC words, matching numbers and letters etc. Simply write the word on the craft stick using a sharpie and then write the corresponding letters onto some small pegs. Children can find the correct letter pegs to spell out the word written on the craft stick.
A fun and interactive 'see and write' activity to learn sight words. Great for letter recognition, keyboard navigation, sight word recognition and spelling practice. Sight words are the words that appear most frequently in our reading and writing. They often are words that don't have a concrete image to accompany them. By eliminating the need to stop and decode sight words, readers are able to focus on words that are less familir to them and helps them read adn write more fluently.
Peg the word
Type the word
Mapping words
Can you add an initial sound to the word part and read the word you make? Children can choose an initial sound and move it along to each word part reading each word they create. Some will of course be real words and some won't. Memorising words can take a child on average 10-15 repetitions but mapping takes around 1-4 repetitions depending on the child. So a simple mapping activity like this at home or in the classroom can be a great tool to support reading. Mapping sight words can be so beneficial too. It is important to note that in order for a child to be able to map words they need letter recognition and phonemic awareness.
Read it, build it, write it
Spelling fun! This is a read it, build it, write it activity specifically designed to support wit the spelling of words. The shape and boxing of the word cards really supports a spelling activity as it encourages children to consider which letters are ascenders (eg, d,b,t) and which are descenders (eg y,g,j). The shape and position of the brick is important as this mirrors the word card shapes. The fine motor skills surrounding this activity are invaluable and finally, noticing the allograph (shape of each letter) can help commit the spelling of the word to the long term memory.
Phonics catch
Catch the balloon and read the words written on the balloon. Fun phonics and great for gross motor and hand eye coordination too. Using the oo digraph for this activity can help cement the sound of 'oo' in the word balloon.
Secret spellings
Become a detective to learn your spellings. Uncover the hidden spelling words just like a crime scene investigator. This activity totally captures imagination and interest especially for slightly older children. Using a spy pen, write their spellings out on pieces of paper. Then set up a crime scene, pass them the UV light section of the spy pen and ask them to uncover the word. Once they have read the word, place the spy pen down and try and write the word. They can use their UV light to check how they got on with the spelling.
Can you read the words and join the blocks that rhyme to make a rhyming pair? Rhyming teaches children about word families such as met,pet, let etc and also teaches children the sound of the language. Recognising rhyming words is a basic level of phonemic awareness and helps teach children that words are made up of separate parts.
Rhyming blocks
Calculator phonics
A great one to build confidence in number and letter recognition at the same time. Write some number codes, get them to type the numbers, turn the calculator upside down and read the words they have typed!
See it, stick it, say it
A fun giant set up using magic paper and post it notes. Include tricky words your little one is working on. Add the words to a grid and including matching poost it note words around the edge. They need to find the corresponding post it note, stick it on the grid and read the word. Constant exposure and practice will help children with reading fluency and confidence. Working on a vertical surface with large resources is great for crossing the midline, hand eye coordination and gross motor skills.
Some words contain letters that we can't hear when we sound them out. For example, ghost, knight, know, knee, wrong, sign, wrap etc.These are known as silent letters, or ghost letters. Write the word out but write the silent letter in the word using a white crayon or colouring pencil. Then ask children to colour over the word in a bright colour, the hidden letter will soon be revealed!
Flip the foil over to the non shiny side, write words containing the 'oi' digraph using a board pen, tip water over the word as the child reads it and watch the letters lift off and float around!
Ghost letters
Tin f 'oi' l words
After filling up some water balloons (a clear colour are best for this activity), use a sharpie pen to write common exception words on the balloons. Then the child can read the word, throw the ballooon and shout out the word written on the balloon as they throw it.
Water balloons
Peg some spelling words on a low level washing line. Children can read the word, unpeg the word and try to clear the whole washing line. A lovely activity encouaging outdoor learning and literacy.
Washing line reading
Creating DIY tracing boards for letters, numbers or words is really easy. Cut up some pieces of cardboard, write the outline of the letter, number or word using small dots (and red dots to indicate the start of the letter). Then cover the small boards in cellotape or sticky back plastic. Children can then use board marker pens to trace over the boards and then the pen simply wipes off to allow them to try again. This can be a great resource to create for less confident or more reluctant writers as the non permenance of this activity can be more encouraging.
DIY board
Jelly bean apostrophes
Write words that require an apostrophe. Then, using a jelly bean, children can place the bean in the position they think is correct for the word written. A very simple, very yummy quick activity for children learning the use of apostrophes.
Building sentences using jigsaw pieces can be a fun way for children to explore teh structure of a sentence. Repurposing an old puzzle in this way can be good fun. Using the back of the puzzle pieces write some simple decodable sentences. Ensure the start of the sentence has a capital letter and then end includes a full stop. The jigsaw pieces also help indicate where finger spaces come between each word.
A frost morning literacy activity. Lay out some letters, sprinkle on some flour and then carefully remove the letters leaving the impression of snowy word prints. Children can explore the words in a very sensory way, reading them and then tracing the words with their fingers into the flour.
Snowy words
Jigsaw sentences
As more and more number squares are slowly removed from the concealed word, can children guess which word is hidden before all number squares are removed?
Write out some words, cut up the same words on pieces of card, indicating the digraph in a different colour. Children need to match the pieces of card to the words written and then read them. This is a very kinaesthetic and visual see it, build it, read it activity.
Goggle hunt
A hilariously fun way to support phonics. Stick a letter on some goggles, talk about the sound this letter makes, then once the child has put the goggles on they need to run around trying to find objects that start with that sound. Active, fun and hilarious all in one.