As a teacher, you know how important it is to keep your students engaged during word work and literacy centers. This is why we have compiled a list of 13 fun and educational phonics activities that your students will love.
BINGO: A Playful Twist to Reinforce Phonics Skills
Let’s start with “Phonics Bingo”. This classic game is a great way to reinforce phonetic patterns and help students recognize sight words. Below you can see an example of sight word BINGO! Click here to see more.
Sentence Scrambles – Exciting Phonics Activities
Sentence scrambles present students with mixed-up words that, when correctly arranged, form coherent sentences. As students rearrange the words, they actively participate in constructing meaningful thoughts. Completing sentence scrambles helps to reinforce a student’s understanding of sentence structure but also sharpens their comprehension skills.
By cutting up the scrambled words and physically manipulating them, students gain hands-on practice in breaking down sentences into meaningful phrases. Want to try out sentence scrambles? You can grab the set shown below here!
Sound Scavenger Hunt Phonics Activities
Another great activity to get students moving is a “Phonics Scavenger Hunt”. Students will move around the room to find objects around the classroom that contain a specific sound. I find that this works best if you have done this activity a few times together as a whole group before you send them off to do it independently. I’ll also often use this activity as a review of skills we learned a few weeks before. Pro tip: if there are not a lot of objects around the room with your target sound, you can print out some pictures and hang them around the room. Click here to see the paper version that I use with my class! 🫶
Memory-Boosting Phonics Activities
Phonics Memory is played like a typical memory game with a phonics spin! Instead of matching two-like pictures, students will try to match a word to a picture. Students practice their decoding skills by reading the word on the card and then matching it to the corresponding image. Phonics Memory is a great game for students to play in pairs. They match words with their corresponding pictures, all while practicing their phonetic skills.
Exciting Word Search Puzzles for Phonics Practice
I’m always looking for ideas to simplify and automate my literacy centers. Last year I started using phonics word searches as part of our word work center, and I’m never looking back! Word searches have become part of our weekly “Fun Friday” literacy centers.
I love how they are the perfect phonics activity to enhance spelling and decoding skills. With a focus on literacy skills, word searches provide targeted practice for students on spelling patterns. For students, this activity set presents a world of fun and learning. Grab the set shown below here!
Technology-Based Phonics Activities
Do you have a technology-based center in your literacy centers? I’m always looking for good programs that will provide solid literacy practice while providing fun to our literacy block. A few of my favorites are Teach Your Monster to Read, ABC Mouse, and ABC Ya. Do you have a favorite? Let me know in the comments! I’m always looking for new ideas.
Boom Cards
If you aren’t using Boom Cards in your classroom, get ready to have your mind blown. With Boom Cards, you can assign your students to practice any skill or concept, and it will self-correct and self-check every question. That’s cool, right?! What if I told you it also provides an individualized report for every student- right down to each question if you wanted? Seriously, don’t sleep on Boom Cards. They will change your life!
Roll and Write
This activity requires cubes with letters written on each side. Students will roll the cubes and write the word. I have students record their words on a recording sheet with two columns, real words, and non-sense words.
Hand-on Phonics Activities
If you’re looking for hands-on phonics activities, “Build-a-Word” is perfect. Students use letter tiles to create words that follow a particular phonetic pattern. “Word Ladders” is another fun way to practice phonics. Students change one letter at a time to create a new word, gradually moving from one word to another.
Other activities favorites in my classroom include “Phonics Twister”, “Phonics Go Fish”, “Phonics Hopscotch”, “Phonics Charades”, “Phonics Simon Says”, and “Phonics I Spy”.
Incorporating these exciting phonics activities into your word work and literacy centers will not only keep your students engaged but will also help them improve their phonetic skills. So why not give them a try? Your students will thank you!
Are you looking for even more resources? Check these out!
- Creative Ways to Use Sentence Scrambles in Your Classroom
- Using Boom Cards in Your Classroom
- 5 Fundations Activities for Your Classroom
Michelle Staley
Hi! I’m Michelle!
I am a first-grade teacher from Connecticut. I’m living my best life as a wife and mom to two adorable and hilarious kids. In my spare time, I create resources that make life simpler for teachers and school fun for kids. Thanks for spending some of your valuable free time here with us!
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