ELA Flashcard Games

 

Letter Card Activities

 

Capital or Lowercase?

(1 – 4 players) 

1. Shuffle all the letter cards and place them in a pile with the letters facing down.
2. Players take turns picking the top card from the pile and deciding whether the letter is a capital or

    a lowercase letter. Place all the capital letters on one side of the drawing pile and all the

    lowercase letters on the other side of the pile.

3. Play continues until all the letter cards have been drawn.

 

Letter Match

(1 – 4 players)

1. From the pile of letter cards chose 5 letters to play with at a time. You will need the capital and lowercase

    letter cards for those letters to play the game. (You can play with more letters if you’d like.)

2. Mix up all the letter cards for the letters you have chosen and place them face down on the playing surface.
3. On their turn, a player flips over 2 cards. The object is to match each capital letter with the correct

    lowercase letter. If the player makes a match he/she keeps the cards. If they do not make a match he/she   

    flips the cards back over and the game continues with the next player.

4. Play continues until all the matches have been made. The person with the most matches wins.

 

Beginning Sounds

(2- 4 players)

1. To set up, pull out all the lowercase letter cards and place them in ABC order on the playing

    surface.

2. A player names an object for the player on their left. The player (whose turn it is) has to identify the

    beginning sound of the object named and hold up the correct letter card. (example: “monkey” – player should

    hold up the “m” letter card).

3. Play continues until each letter card has been used or as long as there is interest.

    *You can play the same game to identify ending sounds of words.

 

ABC Order

(2 players) 

1. Shuffle all the letter cards and place them in a pile with the letters facing down.
2. Players chose who will be the capital letters and who will be the lowercase letters.
3. Players take turns picking the top card from the draw pile. If the card that is drawn from the pile is the kind

    of letter the player is collecting he or she keeps the card. If it is not the kind of letter the player is

    collecting the card is placed in the discard pile.

4. As a player collects more letter cards, he/she places them in ABC order in front of him/her. The first

    person to collect all 26 of their letters and place them in ABC order is the winner of the game.

    (Once all the cards are gone from the draw pile, reshuffle the cards in the discard pile to start a

     new draw pile)

 

Spell Me a Sight Word

(2 players)

1. To set up, pull out all the lowercase letter cards and place them in ABC order on the playing

    surface. You will also need the sight word cards that have been sent home.

     Here are the sight words for the year:

       Sept. to Jan. - I, can, the, we, see, at, am, a, like, to, and, go, be, on, you, do, ran, did, get, my,

                            are, he, with, but, is, little, she, was, out 

       Feb. to June (all of the previous plus the following: - for, have, they, of, said, want, here, me, this, what, say, help, too, play, has,                                                                                                   where, who, good, come, does 

2. Shuffle the sight word cards and place them face down in a pile. Take turns picking a sight word card from

    the pile. Say the word, use the letter cards to spell the word, and then say the word again.

    (You will need the blank letter cards to make some double letters: e, o, and t.)

3. Continue playing until all the sight words cards have been drawn.

 

Rhyming Words

(2 players)

1. To set up, pull out all the lowercase letter cards and place them in ABC order on the playing

    surface. You will also need the “word building mat” glued to the front of the envelope.

2. Begin by choosing an ending from the following list:

         -ad      -am    -an      -ap    -at

         -id      -ig       -in       -ip     -it

         -og     -on      -op      -ot

         -ed     -en      -et     

         -ub     -ug      -ut

3. Place the ending letters on the mat in the last 2 blocks.
4. Players take turns changing the beginning letter and saying the new rhyming word they have made.
5. Once all the rhyming words have been made for a particular ending, chose a new ending with which to play.

 

Building Words

1. To set up, pull out all the lowercase letter cards and place them in ABC order on the playing

    surface. You will also need the “word building mat” glued to the front of the envelope.

2. Name a three letter word for your child to spell. Encourage them to stretch out the word one sound at a

    time and place the appropriate letters in each box of the word building mat. Here are some words to start

    with since the letter “a” and its sound has already been taught:

                   bad               lad               mad              pad              sad              tad

                   ham              jam              ram               fan               man             pan    

                   ran                tan              cap                gap              lap              map

                   nap               rap              sap                tap               bat              cat

                   fat                hat               mat               pat               rat               sat

    (The other vowel sounds will be introduced in class in this order:  i (Dec.), o (Jan), e (March), and u (May)).

* If your child needs an additional challenge, ask him/her to name a three letter for you to spell. You may want

    to purposely misspell a word occasionally to see if your child can correct your “mistake”. 
* Another twist on the activity that can make it more challenging is to give clues for the word you want your

   child to spell.

Examples:

          “I’m thinking of a word that rhymes with cat that starts with the same sound as hippo.”

          “I’m thinking of a word that begins with the first 2 letters you hear in fat but ends with the same sound

           you hear at the end of pan.”

          “Start with the word ram. Change one letter to make the word something you might eat on toast.”