This fun phonics sorting activity is perfect to help children recognise the initial sound in words. It works well in the classroom environment as well as at home. I designed this activity to support children's identification of initial sounds verbally when naming the objects as well as when visually reading the written letters.
The idea of this activity is for the children to sort the objects according to their initial sounds, matching the objects to the written letters. I have carried out this activity with 4 and 5 years olds in reception class. It was particularly effective because I planned the letters I used around the current sounds the children were learning (S, A, T and P) reinforcing their classroom knowledge. You can change the letters according to what the children are learning, maybe you could use the letters in your child's name or set diagraphs for older children.
This activity is free to put together as it can be made up of toys and objects from around the house. I began the activity by asking the children to say the sounds of each letter I had written out and do the jolly phonics actions alongside them. I wrote the letters out in both uppercase and lowercase letters to make the children more aware of the difference. I had a large pile of objects in the middle of the table and asked the children to sort them into smaller piles around each written letter according to the objects initial sound.
The children successfully sorted the objects and enjoyed working out which letter they started with and doing the jolly phonics actions alongside them. However, I would recommend only having 3 or 4 objects per letter because having lots of objects to sort got slightly overwhelming and confusing. A negative aspect of this activity was that all of the toys and objects were new and exciting for the children resulting in them wanting to play and explore. Next time I would set time for the children to play and familiarise themselves with the objects before sorting them.
Once the children had correctly sorted the objects to the right letters, as a group we named all of the objects in each pile to ensure they had the right initial sound. Then we counted all of the objects in each pile to incorporate maths learning and development with in the activity. The children really enjoyed this activity and engaged well because it was a new and exciting way to reinforce classroom learning.
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