Hello, everybody!
It's been a long time since my last post, because I've been a little busy
designing some entertaining activities to review all the phonemes we saw last
year, among other things because new children were enrolled in the
classes. I also wanted to take advantage
of the fact that the children were one year older to introduce simple crafts in
which they could practice a little more their fine motor skills and manual
oculus coordination... so much mental work and so little free time!
Today I wanted to show you the 3 board games - soon there will be 4 - with
which I work the phonemes, together with the official material of the Jolly
Phonics method such as the Activity Books and more material that comes to mymind as I go along in accordance with the needs and inclinations of the
different groups.
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| Pass the Word |
The first game is called Pass the Word #ad and consists of pieces that fit
together like a puzzle, some of which contain a picture with their respective
word and others contain letters of the alphabet. The game is about taking a
piece with the image and looking for the letters that make up the word, as you
can see in the photos. With this game, in addition to the visual recognition of
the letters, you can check whether children already can 'write' the words in
the right direction, ie from left to right or in the right order. In any case,
it helps children to develop these skills through a manipulative game which
entertains them a lot.
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| Alphabet Lotto |
The second game is called Alphabet Lotto #ad and is essentially a phoneme
lottery consisting of 5 double-sided boards, with drawings or with letters, 30
cards with drawings and 30 with letters. Thanks to this design it is possible
to play in 4 different ways: by matching those cards that carry drawings with
the boards that carry drawings, by matching cards that carry letters with the
boards that carry drawings, by matching cards that carry drawings with the
boards that carry letters or by matching cards that carry letters with the
boards that carry letters. Here we help our pupils to practice both auditory
and visual recognition of phonemes and, in addition, they learn vocabulary,
improving their mnemonic skills.
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| Match and Spell |
The latest member of the family is called Match and Spell #ad It contains 12
double-sided boards with three-letter words, 8 double-sided boards with
four-letter words and several cards with letters to 'write' the words that
appear on the boards. It presents 2 levels of play: in the first, the children,
once they have chosen the board they want to complete, look for the letters one
by one and pronounce them until they read aloud the whole word. The second level of the game consists of
choosing a board with the side that does not show the letters face up, only the
image and the blank spaces, and taking the letters as they are pronounced. Here
we also work on the visual recognition of phonemes, phonemic awareness when they
use the boards without the letters and begin to develop the first reading
skills. I especially like this game because it is very similar to some
Montessori reading and writing preschool activities, which is one more
guarantee of its usefulness...
The fourth game I'm going to buy soon is another Match and Spell, but NextSteps, #ad in which the boards and the cards come with words containing the
'digraphs' we're reviewing these days, such as sh-ee-p, b-a-l-oo-n, t-r-ai-n,
qu-ee-n, and so on.
