Word Family Games and Activities

Word Family Activities

As children learn to read they need to learn the sounds letters make, master phonemic awareness, and then they start learning to recognize patterns in words. This ability to see clusters of letters that form similar sounds is important for early literacy! These fun, engaging Word Family Activities are a great way for preschoolers, kindergartners, and grade 1 students to learn to read by becoming familiar with the word family concept.We have found lots of word families activities and word family games to make learning to sound out words and read FUN! Whether you are a parent, teacher, or hoemschooler you will love these word family printables including no-prep word family worksheets and clever word family activity ideas.

What are Word Families

Word families help students learn to read, while recognizing patterns and words with common phonetic sounds. Teaching these rhyming words allows kids to form a strong foundation for spelling skills and phonemic awareness for reading readiness.

Word Families include short, simple word with short vowel sounds in the middle. Typically you will see a lot of these common family words when teaching young learners:

• at family words
• an family words
• it family words
• in family words
• en family words
• op family words
• ot family words
• ug family words
• and any other common word families your children are working on

These word family ideas are a great tool for early elementary age students!

Word Families Activities

Kids will have fun improving literacy skills with these fun and free word family activities for prek, kindergarten, first grade, 2nd grade, and 3rd grade students. When kids have fun learning, they are more likely to remember what they learned and want to practice. Continued practice with word families will help kids achieve fluency.

• Use fun themes kids enjoy like superheroes and bubbles word family activity to make practicing great fun!!
• Help kids read word families with these clever Word Family Clip Cards printable
• Or use a book unit/theme or favorite author week? Spell and read with Truffula trees, make Caterpillar word charts or use playdough with these fun Cat in the Hat mats! Use everyday objects and tools to learn!
• Make little mailboxes like this mailbox activity or go fishing for word families with a fishing game using tiny nets and pingpong balls!
• P is for pizza with this pizza word families idea or simply use your letter cards in an alphabet arc to teach reading and spelling.
• Get outside with this Sidewalk Word Family activity  that uses chalk. Or try this one on steps!
• Use Paint sticks, your magnetic letters with ice cream sticks, or reuse and recycle cardboard rolls to spell words!
• Kids will love this clever activity where they will slide a strip to create different words. We have Word Family Sliders with context clues or Transportation Word Family Sliders to learn blends. Both are available in color or black and white.
• Ready. Set. Learn! These film strip themed word family printable are a clever visual for learning

Word Family Games

By using word families games, kids will have fun learning which will make them want ot play over and over again. This interactive literacy practice will help them gain fluency and give them the confidence they need to jump into reading!

This Board Game helps kids practice “in” words. Or if you are teaching o words, try all these Short O Word Family Games

This fun, visual sorting Word Family Game is a great way for early elementary age kids to practice. Another fun way is this free printable Roll & Race Word Family Game

Looking for a more active game? Try this zany Word Family Sponge Bowling

As long as you are supervising web use, try these online word familiy games sorted by family words

Word Family Worksheets

There are lots of way to teach kids word famlies. You can use free word family worksheets, free word family printables, or hands on word family activites. Either way, you will love using these word family printables to make it quick to set-up these educational, learning activites. Whether you are a parent, teacher, homeschoolers, you will love using these in language arts centers, as extra practice, at home, or as summer learning.

Try these these free printable family word mazes and color the word family worksheets to add to your lessons.

• Dab a Dot Mazes Word Family Worksheets
• Airplane Word Family Worksheets with Do a Dot Markers
• Cooking up Rhymes with Word Family Printables activity
• Lion Rhyming Word Family Activity

 

Word Family Activity

Special holidays MUST be used for learning, right? Have fun learning word families with these seasonal word family activities:

• ⛄ Kids will flip when they see how cute and fun these Snowman Word Family Printables are!
• 💗 Hershey Kiss, chocolate themed Word Family Worksheets for practicing around Valentines Day
• 💗 Chocolate kiss sorting word family activity
• 🌸 These cut-and-paste Spring flowers word family printable are a fun way to practice
• 🐰 These adorable, Easter Word Family Worksheets are a fun, NO PREP way for kids to practice!
• 🐥 Another fun Easter themed way to practice is by sorting Easter eggs word family activity
• 🐣 Put the eggs in the correct carton and write the words on these Easter Word Family Worksheets
• 🎃Kids will have fun sliding the slips through these pumpkin Word Family Printables to read.
• 🍂 Puzzles are a fun way for kids to practice word patterns. Pumpkin pie word family activity
• 🦃  Spin and Cover turkey games for learning word families
• 🍁 Give the turkeys his feathers by sorting the turkey word family activities for early learners
• 🎄 Decorate the Christmas Word Family printables in this super cute literacy activity

Word family games for kindergarten

So many FUN free word family activities, which activity will you children/students want to try out first?

Some other educational activities that are very closely related to word families are CVC Words Activities and Rhyming Words Activities

Kindergarten Printables

• 50 Books for Kindergarten Book List – Books for Kindergarteners to read themselves
• Kindergarten Calendar Printable
• Days of the Week Worksheets
• Kindergarten Spelling Words – add a vowel practice
• Free Kindergarten spelling words Printable
• Hoppy Frog Math Game (addition within 10 and addition to 20)
• Goldfish Kindergarten Subtraction Games
• Roll to 100 Counting Game
• Flower Shape Kindergarten Math Crafts
• Kids will have fun as they color and learn with these Ordinal Number Worksheets
• Spring Kite Skip Counting Craft
• Pirate I Spy Worksheets
• Crack the Code Worksheet Pages for Kindergarten and first graders
• Playdough Subtraction Smash free printable math activity
• Dinosaur Theme Kindergaten Math Worksheets
• What Comes Next Kindergarten Math
• Free Ice Cream Math Worksheets

Kindergarten Phonics

• Short i cvc worksheets cut and paste pdf
• Short E CVC Words Booklet
• Crack the Code CVC Word Worksheets
• Short a CVC Word Book
• Crayon CVC Words Activity
• CVC Word Puzzles Free Printable
• Word Family Sliders Free – lots of styles to print in color or black and white
• Blowing Bubbles Word Family Activities
• Monster Match CVC Word Activity

Kindergarten Activities

• Free Printable Seasons Worksheets w/ Free 4 Season Printables
• Large Printable Weather Unit for kids
• Rain Cloud for Kids experiment and free worksheet
• Water Cycle for Kids Printable Book
• Lots of weather printables to help kids learn about weather terms while epracticing math and literacy skills
• Grab this free printable 5 senses preschool printables to explore the senses of sight, taste, sound, smell, and touch
• Human Body human body playdough mats – lots of choices to learn about various systems of the body including simple for preschoolers, skeletal system, organs, muscles, nerves, and more!
• EPIC, Life-size Human Body Project
• Amazing 5 Senses for kids lesson to explore with hands on activities, videos, books, and more!
• Try this Jelly Bean sense of taste activities for preschool experiment.
• All About Me Kindergarten (Expanding horizons social studies unit to teach kids about themselves, My Family, My Neighborhood, My Community Unit with lots of ideas & resources
• Where do I Live – free printable project and fun idea for explaining how you live in a house, on a block, in a city, in a state, etc.
• Free Community Helpers Coloring Pages – over 20 simple coloring pages exploring jobs
• Community Helpers Printables Wheel
• Handy Community Signs Worksheets
• HUGE Pack of Firefighter Worksheet to practice a variety of skills with kids 3-8
• Free Printable Community Helpers Matching Game