Word Family Game with Paint Chips!

I haven't made this game yet, but it is worth posting!! I saw this Paint Chips Word Family Game on Chasing Cheerios, who found it on The Snail's Trail. What a great idea!

Games - Overview

Most of the games that I have posted can be used with anything you want to teach - letters, sounds, words, colors, shapes etc. I have also listed where I received the game idea from. Most of the books that I got ideas from are out of print, but I'm sure you want still find them on ebay or the library. There are over 35 different games listed under Games - Explanations, so make sure that you click "older posts" when you get to the bottom of a page, so you don't miss any games.

Review of Games

Click on the link above for a quick review of most of the games that I played with my boys. Any new games that I played with Hannah are covered on the blog.

Here are some notes from when I was teaching my son to read:

• I would never criticize Takeshi. If he got one wrong I would simply say the correct answer. He would or wouldn’t repeat it, either way I would say “great job” or “very good”.

• Sometimes he would say a word/letter/sound that I didn’t think he knew and I would say, “How did you know that ____?” Takeshi would just smile, he thought it was so fun to trick me :)
  
  
• A lot of times Takeshi would say, “I’m the mama.” And you’re “Kakeshi”. I would still get him to write or say it himself by saying “Mama, can you show me how…” or “Mama, what is this?” Takeshi would be more than happy to help me.
  

Games - Blends

Blends

I believe this excel file includes the most common (if not all) the Blends. I made these flashcards with the blend on one side and a word that includes the blend on the other side. I would explain that these 2 letters together would make one sound. We would treat the blends just like another letter of the alphabet and play the same games that we did for all the alphabet games. We just added reading the word on the back as an extra step.

sh - ship, fish (this sound is a quiet sound. I would put my finger to my lips and say shhhhh)
ph - phone (this is our "copycat" sound. It copies the sound of "f")
ou - out (say "ow" like you've hurt yourself)
ow - cow (same as above)
ay - say, play, day
ur - fur
ee - tree, bee, see
ea - sea
oa - boat, coat
th - this, then, them
er - her
ir - girl, bird, dirt
ch - chin, chalk, cheerios, ouch
aw - paw, saw
ai - train
ng - king, ring
ck - back, black, kick, trick, duck
ew - new ("eewwww" like something is gross or yucky)
wh - when, why, whiz (another copycat sound, it copies the "w" sound)
oo - book, cook, look
oo - pool, cool, tool

The "oo" is my hardest blend (for me) to teach. There is one set of "oo" that makes the "oooooo" sound as in book, cook, look and the other "oo" makes the "uh" sound as in book, cook and look. I still have a hard time with this and mostly teach these as sight words. Sorry I'm not much help with that.