Hi, there, everyone! Today I am going to tell you how to take a worksheet and turn it into a manipulative that you could use for a literacy center! This is essentially the art of turning lemons into lemonade. In a lot of cases, this turns an activity that is NOT developmentally appropriate into one that IS! You could do this with any worksheets included in your school district’s adopted language arts books, or with any worksheets you already own. But I will be showing you how to do this with my own HeidiSongs worksheets, of course. You will have to use your own creativity to apply these techniques to your own personal collection of worksheets.
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Word Pokers
“Word Pokers” are very simple to make out of the right kind of worksheet. All you have to do is copy the worksheet on to card stock paper and and then laminate it. Cut the boxes apart as shown. Then punch a hole under each answer shown. Turn the paper over and draw a circle around each correct answer. All the children need to do is decide which answer they think is the correct one and then poke a pencil through it. Then they turn the paper around and see if their pencil is poking through the hole with a circle drawn around it on the back! If it is, then they got it right. If not, then they answered incorrectly and they need to try again. My kids enjoyed playing school by completing the worksheet in a sheet protector with a black dry erase marker, and then “grading it” themselves with a red one by using the self-checking Word Pokers. Fun!
The worksheet above came from the CVC book, Volume 1, but there are many more just like it in the CVC Book, Volume 2 also. Check for the links at the end of this post for the free samples if you would like to try this out.
Hidden Words or Letters with Jewels Activity
This is a great idea for the child that needs practice in visual discrimination, but dislikes coloring. Simply give the child some clear or colored, but transparent jewels, and have him or her place the jewel on the target word or letter. The clear, white jewels are especially nice, because they also magnify the word or letter that they are placed on top of, and that makes it extra fun. And when children are relieved of the burden of needing to color the entire thing, they can usually complete MANY of these papers, rather than just one!
As a side note, somebody also mentioned to me at a conference recently that if you tape or ModPodge a word onto the bottom of a jewel so that it shines through to the top, then it is magnified when you look at it from the top of the jewel, just as it looks magnified when you just place the jewel on top of the letter as shown in the photo above. There are probably many applications of this idea as well, but I haven’t had a chance to let the creative juices flow on this one yet. Any ideas out there? Please share!
The Hidden Sight Word Worksheet pictured above can be purchased here. (All six volumes of the Hidden Worksheets to go with our Sing and Spell the Sight Word series are now completely finished and are posted for sale!) The Hidden Letter Worksheet can be purchased here. You can try out a couple of them free by scrolling down to the end of this post and clicking on the link for the freebies, too. Enjoy!
Phonics Sticks and Clips Activity
Phonics Sticks and Clothespins is an easy activity to prepare and easy to use! Plus, kids love it! I originally found this type of activity on the blog called Make, Take, and Teach. There seems to be a never ending supply of great ideas on this blog. All I need is more time to actually MAKE all of these neat little goodies!
To prepare it, all you have to do is staple a small flash card or picture to the end of a craft stick, and then write some beginning sounds on the stick. Then draw a little dot on the back of the stick behind the correct sound. The children simply clip the clothespin on the correct beginning sound, and then check to see if it is covering up the dot. If the dot is covered, they got it right! If not, try again. It’s perhaps a bit too easy to cheat, but that’s really the only drawback. I really like the fact that the children get a little fine motor exercise along with the activity when they are doing their work, too, as is always the case when you include clothespins.
The sample above came from the Sounds Fun Phonics Workbook, Volume 1, but there are many more like it in Sounds Fun Phonics Workbook, Volume 2. Check for the links at the end of this post for the free samples if you would like to try this out.
Sentence Matching Activity
This Sentence Matching Activity is very easy to prepare! All you have to do is simply copy the paper onto colored card stock, laminate it, and then cut it apart! Put numbers on the backs so that it will be self checking as well. (Watch out for some answers that could work for more than one sentence!) I also made an extra copy of the pages so that I could put one of the sentences on the envelopes as well. I recommend using different colors of card stock for each set of sentences, just to help keep the sets separate and avoid a few headaches. This is another one of those activities that are fun to “play school” with. Just have the kids complete the worksheet in a sheet protector with a black dry erase marker, and then “grade it” themselves with a red dry erase marker by using the self-checking Sentence Matching Activity.
The worksheet above came from the CVC book, Volume 1, but there are many more just like it in the CVC Book, Volume 2 also. Check for the links at the end of this post for the free samples if you would like to try this out.
Plastic Letters and Flash Cards
This activity is very simple and can be done with any flash cards. All you do is simply put some sticky notes on top of the portion of the cards that you do not wish to show on the flash cards, and then copy them. Give the children some plastic letters and have them try to rebuild the words on the cards.
The sample above came from the Sounds Fun Phonics Workbook, Volume 1, but there are many more like it in Sounds Fun Phonics Workbook, Volume 2. Check for the links at the end of this post for the free samples if you would like to try this out.
Word Family Clips
This activity makes kids think think about which word families certain words belong to, but doesn’t require a lot of flash cards to move around, which can get lost and require a lot of management. Kids put the colored clothespins on each picture according to the word family that it belongs to. So in the example above, the words that belong to the “-at family” are clipped with a green clothespin, and the words that belong to the “-an family” are clipped with a red clothespin.
To make these, all you have to do is take one of the sound sorting cut and paste worksheets and copy it onto card stock. Then cut off the bottom portion as shown, and glue the word family headings to the very bottom. Add some colored stickers to either side of the word family headings to color code them. Put stickers on the back to make it self checking as well. Then, all you have to do is get some colored clothespins to match your stickers! I got mine at our local dollar store.
The sound sort worksheet above came from the CVC book, Volume 1, but there are many more just like it in the CVC Book, Volume 2 also. Here is a free sample download if you would like to try one.
Wikki Stix and Worksheets
Combining Wikki Stix with worksheets is a fun, and more developmentally appropriate way to have children complete a worksheet drill. You can use Wikki Stix to draw a line on any worksheet that uses the “draw a line to the correct answer” type of format. Just put the worksheet into a page protector first! Don’t forget to give the children a chance to play with the Wikki Stix first, or that’s all they will do with them, of course!
The worksheet above came from the CVC book, Volume 1, but there are many more just like it in the CVC Book, Volume 2 also. Check for the links below for the free samples if you would like to try this out.
Okay, get your free samples HERE:
Word Pokers Sample from the CVC Workbook Vol.1
Hidden Words or Letters with Jewels Activity Sample
Hidden Words or Letters with Jewels Activity Sample from Alphabet Workbook
Phonics Sticks and Clips Activity Sample from Sounds Fun Phonics Workbook Vol.1
Sentence Matching Activity from the CVC Workbook Vol.2
Plastic Letters and Flash Cards from Sounds Fun Phonics Workbook Vol.2
And watch this movie from our video contest! So cute!
