I'm still undecided what phonics program we're going to use. I have HOP that someone gave me, but I have been told that Abeka is great at teaching kids to read. I'm waiting to see what my homeschool library has in stock and what I can find at the used curriculum sale. My question is, what phonics games/manipulatives have you used to make learning a little more fun? My son is busy, but he's ready to learn to read. We've been working through the ETC A,B,C books (which he's breezing through) and homeschoolshare.com's free ABC lapbook to buy myself some time. The plan is to start working with him this summer since he's ready and teachable. So, what are some fun things you like to play? Thanks, Patty
My kids and I like to play initial consonant bingo and vowel bingo by Trend Enterprises. I believe they are older games (maybe from the 70's or something), but my kids and I like to play those anyway. I found the games at a yard sale for $1 each. Also, we play sentence builder and some other blending phonics games I found at our public library. Good luck finding games and have fun!
It has been a while since Ems was working on phonics but we used a lot of play dough to cut out words and blend them. Sidewalk chalk is great. I would give Ems a blend on the driveway and she would finish the word and draw a picture of it. For example, I would write at. She would add a c to make cat. Then shw ould draw a cat. The mud came in handy too. She played in the mud and would write some of her phonic work in it.
One thing we did to make phonics and spelling fun was using the letter tiles from a Scrabble game. I would seperate the vowel tiles from the consonant tiles, and then place them in seperate paper bags. After doing this, I would have my children pull out letters from each bag and see what words they could form.
We did lots of in-the-car games while stuck in Atlanta traffic. Mostly: "what words rhyme with (or have an ending sound like) 'cat'?" "what words start with the same sound as 'mom'?" etc Sometimes we would just take turns listing words, and the kids would dissolve into giggles. I'm still not sure why, LOL, but whatever works...sometimes I would throw out the wrong word - 'does 'bake' end the same as 'cow'?' and they would be thrilled to 'catch' me messing up. Sometimes I would say things like, hmm, if I add a 't' sound to 'ha' - that's haaa - what word does that make? and then add other sounds to the end as well. Rhyming games, too, where you make up nonsense rhymes and have them fill in the rhyming word. "One day, oops I sat down upon my fluffy...? what?" I mean, very basic, non-poetical, would be ashamed to admit it stuff that they just found hysterical. We also made up songs like that, despite my poor singing ability, and they loved those. HTH, SG
We do the "Word Game" while in the car. Our version (as there are several different versions I have heard of) is to say a word that begins with the last letter of the word said previously: I say, "Meditate" and my DD says, "Elephant." For phonics purposes we use the last sound and rhyme with a new word: I say, "Show" and my DS says "Tow." This one we had to make up some different rules ... we rhyme the sound until we cannot rhyme it anymore. The last person to rhyme gets to pick the new sound.
We do matching games (like Memory)...we make cards out of paper and the matches are either the word or starting letter that match a picture. So "Cc" or "cat" would match with a picture of a cat.
MAd libs madlibs and MORE MAD LIBS! my kids learned a lot about sentences, in fact I recently pulled them otu again to get us back into the idea, I am going to do it back wards though and have them write the story up , and then leave a blank for adjectives, Nouns, etc. Wee!
there is also diploma dogs, and Boggle for spelling, there are so many words games out there too... I knwo thats not grammar jjust good educational games! dh made up a phonics game years ago when we were teaching the begingings and it was great for teaching sounds and that part of it. Not sure where its at or I would send you the copy I have.
We LOVE Diploma Dogs!!!!!!! We also have Gramopoly, 'SMath, Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego, Alphabet Bingo, Boggle JR, Scrabble JR, a Wiggles game (that has a lot to do with letter sounds!), Presto Chango-O and a few others. I know most aren't phonics games.. but you can always take ideas from other games to make your own.
It's "A Parts of Speech Game" I just looked on the site that made it.. linguisystems and it's no longer made and I dont' see it elsewhere online We found it at a yardsale last year and really like it. Each player gets a sentence.. from easy to hard as they get better, then you go around the board trying to land on each part of speech that is in your sentence, which you buy. It's really cute.
This is great! Thanks so much! We already play the word games in the car, in the house, at the doctor's office, etc. I'm off to research some of these other games and see what I can find. The mad libs are a great idea for my older two. I could probably make a bingo game up myself, too. I'm overwhelmed. You ladies are wonderful! Thanks again, Patty
I make bingo games all the time. I have made them for letters, numbers, and lots of different sight words so far. The word ones are only for my oldest son at this time so I play with him (it is much more fun to play with someone instead of by yourself). He thinks it is fun to get to be the one who draws the card with the word on it some times and that is great because then he has to read the word and then also find it on the bingo board.
I started singing songs from the letterland series to teach my 4 year old phonics. I'd probably use the same series to teach my 2 yr old as well. Its got a catchy tune and to be honest, i think i've learn phonics myself too Other than that, i also take every opportunity to plan in some teaching moments. When we are out, we will play a game of "guess whats the first letter". My kids and i are enjoying this thoroughly.
