101 Free, Fun And Educational Word Card Activities

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How to use this teaching resource

This is one of my favourite teacher resources.

It provides some really simple but effective and fun word card games ideas as well as activities for general spelling and word study.

I would use this document almost every day to plan for the following types of activities……

• Daily group activities and/or tasks – at least one session per day involved some type of dolch sight word list or theme word card game or activity.

• Home sight word games and activities – Many Teacher Members are sending the full version – ‘101 Fun and Educational Word Card Activities’ home as a reference document for Parents – communicating ideas and ways to help their children learn sight words at home.

• PLUS they are fantastic for those fill in, impromptu and early finisher activities.

 

101 VOCABULARY / WORD CARD ACTIVITIES….
a sneak preview…..SEE ABOVE DOWNLOADS FOR FULL FREE DOWNLOAD

1. Immerse your Learning Area…

• Absolutely immerse your learning area with words  – hang them from the ceiling like a ladder, have them on the windows, pop them on your bulletin board displays, have full class sets in themed boxes (small washing powder boxes work well) or hanging pockets ready for children to use for reference and games everyday…
• Children need to be absolutely enveloped by all sorts of words, eg. theme words, sight words, phonics words, CVC words and more.. EVERYWHERE !

2. Syllables and Sounds Mapping…(MY ALL TIME FAVOURITE ACTIVITY – IT JUST HELPS SOOOOO MUCH PARTICULARLY WITH WRITING)

• Practise clapping or moving to the syllables of each word.Use whiteboard markers on laminated cards to stroke out the syllables in each word (don’t forget each syllable has a vowel).
• The sounds (or graphemes) within each syllable are then mapped using a dot for 1 letter graphemes, and underscore for 2 or more letter graphemes.
• Also can – Bring up the pdf words file on the electronic whiteboard and use digital pen to mark the syllables and sounds as a whole class.
• Also can – Make up a chart with headings – ‘Word’ ‘How many Syllables’ ‘How Many Sounds’ eg. The word ‘river’ has 2 syllables and 4 sounds so would look like this …….
  

3. Twister Chart

• Make a ‘twister’ style chart with chalk on a concrete floor, using letters instead of colours.
• Children choose a word and place their feet and hands on the letters as they spell out the words.

4. Make a Vocabulary / Word Dictionary...

• Each child has a ‘scrapbook’ with each letter of the alphabet written at the top of every 2nd or 3rd page.
• Whenever you present a new set of  words – print your chosen word cards in black and white reducing the size to about 4in 1 in your printer settings.
• Children cut these words out and glue them into the appropriate initial letter of their ‘dictionary scrapbook’
• Great for writing reference and word practice – by the end of the year they have a full scrapbook of all the words they have been ‘exposed’ to.

5. Mini Words…

• Print off smaller size words in black and white using the printer settings (for example 4in1 page).
• These words are then cut up and put into a small lunch container to practise at home.
• Send a copy of these ‘101 Word Card Activities’ home with parents as a reference for activities with these cards.

6. Who Am I ? Game…

• *Have your selected word cards on display.
• *Children take turns giving ‘who am I’ clues for a chosen word.
• *For example, I am yellow, I have 5 letters, I end in ‘y’.
• *Other children guess the word.

7. Hangman…

• *Have your selected word cards on display.
• *Play ‘hangman’ using these cards as reference.

8. Find-a-Word in Reading Books…

• *Using your pile of chosen word cards – children find each word in class reading books.
• *Write down each word and how many times they found it.
• *Could use a ‘tally’ for this.

9. Dominoes…

• *Using your chosen word cards, deal them out so that each child has the same amount.
• *Children take turns placing their cards down making sure the last letter of one matches the first letter of another word card as in dominoes style.

10. Interactive Whiteboard Wordplay…

• *Set your IWB so that your chosen cards pdf file displays.
• *Children circle the letters, sounds, and patterns within the words.

11. Chinese Whispers…

• *Children are sitting in a circle.
• *First child picks up a word card and whispers the word to the child next to them
• *The word get ‘whispered’ around to the last child who says to word out loud.
• *Word card gets held up to check if correct.

12. Dismissal Words…

• *Grab a set of word cards and as children are dismissed or move to another activity – ask each child to say the word or point to a letter / sound in the word etc as they move on…

13. Circle Smaller words within Words…

• *Use whiteboard markers to circle smaller words within the laminated word card words.
• *For example – ‘ball’ – ‘all’.

14. Chalk Words…

• *Children go outside and practise writing their words with chalk on the concrete.

15. Handwriting Practice…

• *Children use whiteboard markers to practise tracing over a set of laminated word cards.

16. Word Classification / Grouping…

• *This is a great activity for early finishers also.
• *Grab a set of cards or more classify/group them according to all sorts of criteria…
• *number of letters
• *words with double letters
• *compound words
• *words that rhyme
• *words with certain phonic sounds
• *same initial letters
• *same ending letters

17. Flashlight Words….

• *Have your chosen word cards on display.
• *Turn off the lights and use a flashlight or torch to flash on each word card.
• *Children say the word as you flash on them.

18. Around the World Words...

• *Children play this in continuous pairs.
• *Flash the word card to the first pair, first child to say the word correctly, moves on to the next child to make a pair.
• *Another card is flashed – first child to answer correctly moves on to the next child and so on..

19. Tic Tac Toe Here I Go…

• *Have your chosen word cards displayed.
• *Children or Teacher uses a pointer to sing as they point to the words in random fashion…’Tic Tac Toe Here I go, Where I Land I Do Not Know’
• *Stop on a card – children say the word.
• *Is fun to go really fast with this and children love being the ‘teacher’.
• *This has always been a simple favourite wherever I have used it.

20. Swat the Word…

• *Have the chosen words displayed.
• *Children use a flyswat to ‘swat’ the words as they are called out.

21. Stepping Stones…

• *Place chosen word cards on the floor in random fashion.
• *Children take turns stepping on the stones (word cards), saying the words as they step on each one.
• *Children be careful not to fall off into the river full of crocodiles

22. Musical Words…

• *Children sit in a circle.
• *1-5 word cards are passed around as music plays.
• *Once music stops, children with cards, stop and look at them and say the word or say something interesting about the word eg. double letters etc – continue with the music.
• *Can build it up to 20 or more cards being passed around good fun.

23. Word Walk…

• *Children grab 1 or more cards , depending on the age of level of the children.
• *Children walk around the room or school (under supervision) looking for their words on signs, books, around the environment…
• *Children keep a tally of how many times they see each word.
• *To make it fun children could have their own ‘word wands’ made from dowel or ‘fairy wands’ purchased from cheap shops.

24. Playdough Words…

• *Children make words up using playdough.
• *If you make the word cards larger size, they can place the play-dough over the top of the letters..

25. Coin Toss / Beanbag Toss…

• *Place selected words on the floor face up.
• *Children take turns to toss the coin, or beanbag onto a word and then say that word or say something interesting about the word eg. double letters etc.
• *Make this more difficult by asking the ‘tosser’ to throw onto a specific word or other clues, such as – a word beginning with ‘b’ or a word with the sound ‘oo’ in it, or a word with 4 letters for example.

26. Crisscross Words…

• *Children write their words downwards, then fill in the missing letters…

27. Letter Stencils and Letter Stamps…

• *Children make up words from the selected word cards using letters stencils or letter stamps.

28. Magnetic Letters…

• *Children make words using magnetic letters.
• *A great way to do this for individual use is to use cheap baking trays for each child to place their magnets on.

29. Beat the Clock…

• *Using the word cards, how many times can each word be written in 1 minute.
• *Great to work in pairs with one child writing and one child doing the timing.

30. Beat the Clock Reading…

• *Hold up the  words – how many words can be read out loud in 1 minute.
• *Again, this could be done as a class or in pairs with one child saying the word while the other times.

 

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