Time for week 7 of Get Ready for K Through Play, the 8 week series I am working on with my favorite bloggers. We will be providing you with all the tools you need to prepare your child for Kindergarten in fun, hands-on ways. Each week we have been focusing on a different Kindergarten readiness skill. This week’s topic is Alphabet and Phonics and I will be sharing a fun water balloon game to help kids practice their phonics skills.
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You will need:
- Water balloons
- Permanant marker
- Index cards
- Tape
Kids love water balloons and since it’s summer can there be a more fun way to learn? For this phonics activity, I filled 15 water balloons and wrote some word endings on them – at, an, ar, ug, in. I made 3 balloons for each ending.
Then I wrote the following letters on index cards: F, H, C, J, P, B, and M. I taped those cards to the wall.
I gave the kids the box of water balloons with the word endings. They would pick a balloon and bring it up to a letter to see if it made a word. If it did, they had to read the word and they got try and throw the balloon on the letter to pop it.
In addition to being a fun phonics game, my kids had the opportunity to enjoy some gross motor play.
Sometimes they really surprised me with their good aim!
Whenever they got a new balloon, they would go down the line of letters to see if they had a word. “Har is not a word, but car is!”
Our game was interrupted by a little visitor who did not appreciate being splashed by water. We took a little break until he moved on.
As we played, we kept a list of the words that we made. At the end we read and reviewed them.
If you are looking for a way to practice phonics that doesn’t involve worksheets and you want to beat the heat as well, then you need to try water balloon phonics.
You’ll make a splash with your kids!
For more fun Alphabet and Phonics activities hop on over and visit my friends:
Alphabet Phonics Activities for Kids from Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas
Walk the Word Gross Motor Phonics Game from Coffee Cups and Crayons
Learning Letters and Their Sounds from Mama Smiles
Be sure to join me here at Mess For Less every Wednesday for Get Ready for K Through Play. Then, please check out my fellow bloggers in the series: Coffee Cups and Crayons, Mama Smiles, Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas, Rainy Day Mum and Toddler Approved, who will be bringing you some more great resources on each week’s topic.
The topics are:
June 12 – Language
June 19 – Social and Emotional Skills
June 26 – Independence Skills
July 3 – Math Concepts
July 10 – Books, Reading and Literacy
July 17 – Fine Motor and Writing Skills
July 24 – Alphabet and Phonics
July 31 – Ready to Learn Skills
For even more ideas to prepare your child for Kindergarten, follow the Get Ready for K Through Play Pinterest Board.
Megan Sheakoski says
Looks like a lot of fun Vicky!!! We did a gross motor one too! Such a fun way to learn!
Lorie K says
Love this idea! Pinning it.
Becky says
What a fantastic idea! Just found this post on Pinterest. I'll be sharing on my Facebook page later today!