Long Vowel Activities

Are you looking for some fun and simple ways for your kids to practice reading long vowel/CVCe words? Check out these ideas!

For this first trick, all you need is a popsicle stick to make  a magic 'e' wand!

I printed out some CVC words that can change into CVCe words and taped an 'e' on a popsicle stick. Then we practiced reading the words before and after adding the magic 'e'. When we would add the 'e' we would exclaim "bippity boppity boo!" to make things a little more fun.

Fluency strips are also a fantastic way for readers to build fluency, so I created some using long vowels! See the strips in action:

 

You can make some of these yourself by typing up sentences, cutting out strips, and stapling them together (or put them on a ring). If you'd like some that are already created, you can get mine here: Fluency Strips Bundle.

 

For more practice we did some interactive notebook pages!  

 

 

 

This week we have also been adjusting to life and homeschool with a newborn! Our sweet #5 was born on February 16th.  He is a very good baby and still sleeping most of the time (he's almost 3 weeks now), so for the most part, we are able to complete our work with little distraction from him. Now my 2 year old is a different story...

 

 

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

This week was our official start back into homeschool for the year. With my 2 girls who are in preschool and kindergarten, we are working with a book each week, tying in language arts, math, and other subjects as we can.

What better book to start the year off with than Chicka Chicka Boom Boom? We have read it before, so it wasn't new to the kids, but we found a lot of fun activites to go along with it as we practiced the letters of the alphabet.

 

The book we have came with a CD of Ray Charles reading the story, along with some fun song versions of the story. So the first 2 days, I just read the story to them from the book, and the other days we listened to different tracks from the CD.

 

For some hands-on-fun, I poured some bags of dry pasta into a plastic tub, and then buried in a set of alphabet magnets. The girls dug through and had to find the letters in order. The first day we used capital letters, the second day we used lowercase.

 

 

 

I found this cute page at http://www.pre-kpages.com/abcenter/

 

I called out a letter and they used Do-A-Dot markers to dab the letter.

 

 

 

We used a coconut tree template to make our own Chicka Chicka Boom Boom trees on construction paper. I printed out bubble letters of each of their names for them to add as well.

 



 

To incorporate some math, I drew some palm trees and put them in a plastic page protector, then we made "coconuts" from playdoh and I made up some word problems for the kids to add and subtract the coconuts from the tree.

 

 

 

We also completed this Hundreds Chart Mystery Picture of a palm tree - you can grab it FREE in my TpT store HERE!

 

 

 

 

Our last craft was another tree, made from paper towel rolls and construction paper.

 



 

 

As you can see, we had a lot of fun with the story this week!

Conversation Hearts Fun



We love using food to practice skills! The kids get so into it, and work diligently so they can have their treats at the end! I found these conversation hearts tubes at Walmart ($1 each) that are the perfect size for each kid.

 

We sorted, graphed, tallied, measured, and practiced patterns and sight words - all using the conversation hearts!

 

 

 

 

 

 You can get the Learning With Conversation Hearts pack that we used HERE!

Now I Know My ABC's

Learning the alphabet can be so much fun! There are so many great ways to teach kids letters and sounds. I've made a list of some of the things we've loved doing!

1. Sing the ABC song (and find fun versions on YouTube to watch).

2. Use magnetic letters on a white board or the fridge.

3. Go on an alphabet letter hunt around the house - find each letter.

4. Go on an alphabet letter hunt while riding in the car - look on license plates and signs.

5. Do a scavenger hunt around the house and find objects that start with each letter.

6. Skywrite the letters - stand up and use a straight arm to write the letter as big as you can in the air.

7. Make letters out of playdough.

8. Paint letters freehand - or paint in bubble letters (get some printables here).

9. Fill bubble letters with objects that start with that letter (ex: bandaids on B, popcorn on P)

10. Rainbow write letters - trace letters over and over with different colors of crayons.

11. Draw letters on a chalkboard or whiteboard, and have kids erase them as you call them out.

12. Letter hopscotch - write letters on the sidewalk with chalk, or inside, just put paper circles with letters on them spread around on the ground. Call out letters and have kids hop to the right one.

13. Write letters on a big beach ball with permanent marker. Throw the ball for your kids to catch. When they catch it, they look at the letter closest to their pointer finger and say it - they could also name something that starts with that letter.

14. Form letters from string or yarn

15. Sound shoot out - say a letter, then the kids tell you the sound it makes, or something that starts with that letter, then if they get it right, they can throw a ball into a basketball hoop or bucket.

16. Play with foam letters in the bathtub

17. Use a (clean) fly swatter and have kids splat letters as you call them out.

18. Make an alphabet parking lot on paper, writing one letter in each space, then have kids drive their cars and "park" on the letter you call out. Or put a small piece of masking tape on the cars with the lower case letters and have them park in the space with the capital letter.

19. Write letters in salt or sand on a tin pie plate or tray.

20. Get a letter puzzle and bury the pieces in a tray of rice. Kids dig through the rice to find pieces and put the puzzle together.

21. Write letters on ping pong balls, put them in a container of water, and use a little net to go fishing for letters.

22. Paint letters with water on a sidewalk, fence, or chalkboard.

23. Get letter cookie cutters and make alphabet cookies.

24. Get some old magazines and cut out letters. For an extension, gather a lot of one letter, then arrange and glue them on a piece of paper in the shape of that letter.

25. Invest in some great resources! While there are a multitude of free things you can do to introduce the alphabet, there are also some great resources that you can buy for just a few dollars to take your kids to the next level after they recognize letters and sounds.

I've created some fun ways to practice letters, like this adorable Animal Alphabet Emergent Reader and Interactive Notebook Set, which includes a colorful class book, student book to color, cut, and put together, and pieces to make their very own animal alphabet interactive notebook!

 

I've also created these fun Dot Marker Mystery Pictures that use Do-a-Dot markers (also known as bingo daubers) to find and dot letters to create a mystery picture!

 

 

And when  your kids are ready to practice writing the letters, I've created this fun Alphabet Letters Practice Pack of worksheets where kids can trace, write, find and dot, cut and sort all the letters of the alphabet!

 

 

I hope your kids have fun with all these activities!