Phase 3 - ee
The activities and games in this blog post can be adapted and used with any sound that your child is learning. Phase 3 sounds and words can be found on the sounds page.
Revisit and Review - Phase 3 sounds
Flashcards are a quick and easy way to revisit sounds but they can be boring! This simple game is a great way to engage children by adding an element of competition.
Choose a selection of flashcards that your child has already been taught. Put them in an envelope so that the letters are hidden. Slowly, pull the flashcard out to reveal the sound so that only the top of the letters show at first and gradually reveal more and more. The first person to recognise it and shout out the correct sound wins the card. Keep playing until all of the sounds have been pulled out of the envelope. The winner is the player with the most cards.
This game is a great way to help children recognise what the sounds (phonemes) look like written down (graphemes). The more they recognise and remember what the sounds look like the quicker they will guess e.g. they might guess the 'igh' sound as soon as the dot is revealed on the left hand side.
My daughter loved this game so much that as soon as we finished playing she put the cards back in the envelope so that we could play again.
Reading - can you see the word?
I used a cardboard box to make a large wordsearch. I asked Sophie which words she could see. I showed her how to search for the ee digraph (where two letters make one sound) in the wordsearch and then to look if it was in one the words she was looking for. This is a great way to encourage children to look and see if there is a digraph in words when they are trying to sound them out and blend them.
I wanted the wordsearch to grab her attention so I knew I couldn't just print one off or use normal paper. I used a cardboard box and scored lines in it using scissors to create a grid. This made it easier to write the letters so they all lined up. You could also make one using a large roll of paper, using chalk on the floor or even chalk pens on a window.
I started by writing the ee words on the grid and made a list of the words down the edge of the cardboard. Then I filled the rest of the boxes in with random letters. I tried my best to make sure that I didn't create any rude words by mistake! Hopefully, I didn't!
Sophie spotted me making it. I told her she couldn't watch because I was hiding words, which made her more intrigued. She was so excited to have a go when it was ready! She read the words down the side then circled them when she found them in the word search. She lost interest after 5 words so we moved on to the next activity but I will leave this out for her to complete if she wants to another time.
Writing - can you see the letters?
I stapled two toilet rolls tubes together to make binoculars and asked her if she wanted to be a word detective.
I put the ee card on the table and selected the magnetic letters that she would need to make some ee words. I didn't put the whole set of magnetic letters out because it would make it harder for her to find the ones she needed and I wanted to keep her engaged.
Phase 3 words: see, sheep, feel, weep, feet, jeep, seem, meet, week, deep and keep. Use the letters shown in the photos below. You could add more letters if you wanted to use Phase 4 words.
Phase 4 words: sleep, creep, bleed, sweet, screen, street, speech.
I said a word and she used the binoculars to see if she could spot the letters she needed. Then she wrote them on her board. Giving children a selection of letters to choose from can give them the confidence to have a go. Encourage them to segment the words e.g. week, w-ee-k.
The word she was making below was week not wee! However, children love writing words they think are a bit rude so if you have a reluctant writer, asking them to write wee might help!
If you have a go at any of these activities and share any photos on social media I would love to see them. Please tag @miniwritersclub and use #miniwritersclub and let me know how you get on.
Anna