5 Engaging Activities for Beginning Sounds

5 Engaging Activities for Teaching Beginning Sounds

1. Create a Sound Box

How many times have your kids gotten a bag full of trinkets as party favors, just to come home and leave them sit on your kitchen table?  It happens here all the time.  But the teacher-mom in me can’t throw them away.  Instead, I’ve collected them to make sound boxes; one for my house, and one for the classroom.

5 Engaging activities for teaching beginning sounds.

My sound boxes are simply decorated shoe boxes full of trinkets.  For example, I toss plastic rings, necklaces, pens, markers, stickers, sunglasses, fidget spinners, hot wheel cars, barbies, and so much more into the boxes.  In my blog post, 3 Tips for an Awesome Halloween Party for Kids, you can see examples of these trinkets in our pinata filler. If you don’t have these junk toys sitting around your house, you can grab sets of alphabet objects from amazon, such as the Alphabet groceries or the best-selling Letter Soup set.

Then, I have the kids match the objects to letter cards.  They love it!  To them, they get to “play” with toys.  To an educator, they are completing a hands-on, interactive lesson to build early reading skills.

2. Beginning Sounds Clip Cards

3. Beginning Sounds Task Cards

Beginning Sounds Task Cards (letters A-Z), builds fluency with segmenting initial sounds, letter-sound correspondence, and writing letters.  Kiddos say and write the initial sound of the picture shown on the task card. If you’re wanting a phonics activity for kids, task cards are very versatile.  There are many ways you can use task cards at home or in the classroom.

4. Matching Letters and Sounds Worksheets

These printable worksheets for beginning sounds are great for a quick review. Your little learners draw a line from the picture to the letter representing the beginning sound. Designed for preschool, PreK, and Kindergarten, these printable activities will help build the phonemic awareness skills.  If you teach or have preschoolers at home, you may be interested in my friend’s website, Cool Tot School.  She also has a blog post about engaging ways to help kids identify letters. 

You can get started with the beginning sound match-up worksheets, today.  Simply print and use as an assessment, homework, morning work, or as a quick review after a mini lesson.  I like doing a quick mini-lesson to demonstrate matching pictures to the beginning sounds.

5. Electronic Phonics Games for Beginning Sounds

In addition to the activities and resources listed above, you may also want to incorporate an electronic phonics games.  For example, this Hot Dot’s Jr. game is great for interactive phonics and practicing beginning sounds.  Use as traditional flash cards or with any Hot Dots pen (sold separately) for an interactive experience with fun lights and sounds!

Conclusion

Teaching beginning sounds can be fun and engaging.  Find activities such as letter sound boxes, beginning sounds clip cards and alphabet task cards, beginning sounds match up worksheets, and electronic phonics games to keep learning fun! An alphabet pocket chart center is also a staple for preK and kindergarten learners. Every year, I find different ways to incorporate this into teaching letters and sounds. Don’t forget to keep learning fun everyday with these 10 Best Learning Toys for Kids.

Leave a comment below and let me know what you think about these 5 engaging activities for teaching beginning sounds.