Teaching CVC words in kindergarten is one of the most essential parts of literacy instruction. CVC words help students develop foundational decoding skills that are important to their reading success in the future. Since this is such a key skill, it’s important to have a variety of meaningful ways for students to practice and work with these words. Hands-on word work activities allow students to manipulate words in a more concrete way, which is great for all students, especially those that need more reinforcement.
I’m excited to share 10 of the best and most effective CVC word activities for kindergarten that I know your students will love.
Hands-On CVC Activities
Phonics Ball Game
The first hands-on Kindergarten CVC word activity is a fun and versatile game that you can use with CVC words and beyond. All you’ll need are plastic balls (like those found in ball pits) or ping pong balls. Simply write letters on them with a Sharpie and place them in an egg carton that you’ve cut in half so there are 3 spaces. Write CVC words on notecards and have students draw a card and build the word with the balls, sounding it out as they build. As students’ skills grow, you can write blends and digraphs on some of the balls to build more challenging words.
Magnet Wand CVC Words
Sometimes, simply adding a fun tool, such as a magnet wand, to a simple word building activity is all it takes to engage your students and get them excited about learning. For this activity, separate magnetic letters into 3 cups labeled C-V-C, for consonants, vowels, and consonants. Your students will use magnetic wands to fish for letters, lining them up in order. Then, they will practice decoding and reading the word.
Word Family Picture Sorts
Using kid-friendly pictures and hands-on sorting activities is an effective way for students to work on word family words. For this activity, students will practice sorting pictures into the appropriate word family category, After the hands-on sorting, they’ll show what they know by completing the corresponding cut and paste word family sorting worksheet. With 18 word families included, students will get a lot of great practice.
Slap the CVC Word
If you have kinesthetic learners in your class, this Slap the CVC Word game is perfect for them! All you’ll need are either foam or magnetic letters or even notecards with letters written on them and a fly swatter. Arrange the letters to make a CVC word and have the students slap each letter as they sound out the word. This activity will definitely be a hit!
CVC Words and Activities
The next kindergarten CVC words activities are hands-on, engaging, and offer a ton of variety, so your learners will never get bored! This activity pack has several hands-on activities to help your students read, write, and decode CVC words. Activities include:
- Write the Room
- Word Families
- Sentence Practice
- Read it Draw it
- Write it Sort it
- Real Words vs. Silly Words
- Read it Glue it
To get a sneak peek of how these activities may fit into your literacy lessons, check out my All Things CVC blog post!
CVC Cups
If you need a quick and easy word-building game, this one is for you! CVC cups is an easy, DIY game that you can put together in seconds. Just grab party cups, sticky notes, and a sharpie. Write letters on the sticky notes and attach them to the party cups. Your students can mix and match the cups to make new words and practice reading CVC words. You can even work on phoneme substitution by simply swapping out one sound to make a new word.
CVC Word Memory
What kindergartener doesn’t love a good game of memory? Matching CVC words and pictures in a game-style setting is an effective and fun way to practice reading words. You can use any picture cards and CVC word cards you have, or you can write them on notecards. The picture and word cards from the CVC Words and Activities set work perfectly for this matching game.
Roll a CVC Word
One of the most versatile classroom resources is dry-erase dice! These can be used for so many word work games, but also for other learning games you may play with your students. A few options for using dry-erase dice to practice CVC words are:
- Write consonants on 2 dice and vowels on 1 dice. Have students roll and sound out the word.
- Write word families on 1 dice and consonants on 1 dice. Have students roll to practice onset and rime.
- Write CVC words on 1 dice and roll to sound out the word they land on.
- Write CVC words on 2 dice and roll to sound out the words and determine if they rhyme or not.
Digital CVC Resources
CVC Words Boom Cards
Boom Cards are a highly engaging and effective way for students to practice CVC words. Although they are digital, they’re still very hands-on and interactive as students drag and drop pictures, letters, and words to practice their skills. Boom Cards are self-checking and easy to use both in the classroom and at home via digital learning. This bundle of Boom Cards covers skills such as:
- Segmentation
- Word Family Practice
- Beginning Reading Skills
- Sentence Completion
- Blending
- Letter Sound Knowledge
- Visual and Auditory Practice
CVC Word Apps
Last up on the list of kindergarten CVC word activities is a roundup of my favorite CVC apps. These are tried and true, user-friendly apps that your students will be able to easily navigate and have fun reading and building CVC words with. Plus, they’re either very low cost or free!
I hope these hands-on and digital CVC word activities have given you some ideas for how to incorporate even more meaningful word work into your lessons. I’d love to hear from you about which activities you try first! Check out these CVC word activities I have that can help your students master these beginning words!
- Boom Cards – CVC Words Mega Bundle
- CVC Words & Activities
- Word Problems
- Word Work – Differentiated Worksheets
- CVC Word Families Worksheets and Picture Sorts
