Letters, Sounds, Phonemes, Syllables
You need: Pictures or objects/ chart paper and letter tiles (optional)
Suggestion: Laminate all pictures. Pictures for sorts, clipart pictures or pictures from books. Select about 5-7 sorting categories to start. Pictures can be used for letters (initial, medial and final), sounds (initial, medial and final), phoneme counting, syllable counting.
Activity: Select sorting category. For example, pictures that start with M, S, R, L, and T. Hide about 30-50 pictures around the room. Divide children into 5 groups (may need more groups depending on number of children). Secretly assign each group a letter/sound to start with. Let the groups quietly look for the objects that begin with their letter. When finished have them come to a meeting place, sitting with their group. Each group will take a turn sharing their pictures while the rest of the class guesses what letter/sound they had. You can use chart paper and letter tiles to graph the number of pictures found for each letter and then discuss more, less and equal amounts. The purpose is to have children distinguish between letters, sounds, words with different numbers of phonemes or syllables. This is also a very motivating way to practice letters and sounds.