This activity can be used to burn off some of your child’s extra energy while practicing their sounds to develop their phonemic awareness. It’s even more fun when you have siblings or friends join in!
- Choose a target letter and decide where in the word you want the focus to be (easy: beginning sound, medium: ending sound, hard: middle sound or mixed if working with vowels). It also helps to create a list of random words that have the target sound and some that don’t ahead of time, so you don’t get stuck trying to think of some on the spot.
- Tell your child that you’ll be saying some words and that they have to listen to see if the word has the target sound in the right place. If the word does, they can jump up. If it doesn’t, they can just stay where they are.
- Tell them to get in the ready position by squatting down with their hands on the floor (I call it froggy position). Begin saying some words slowly to give them a chance to react.
Some sample words for the beginning sound /s/:
silly mine net
goat sack scallop
happy Septmeber star
snake tent book
Sally ballopn playground
monkey singer squash
I promise that you’ll wear your child out playing this! You can use it as a game to pay when you introduce a new sound or as review. You can also change it up by changing their response activity (clapping, stomping, jumping jack, etc.)