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Missing Letter

Place a bean bag on two. Then, ask the students what vowel would make the two letters into a word. Have them hop and say the word they made. (Can do same activity just without beginning or ending letter.)

Mystery Word

Say three letter sounds (that create a word from the mat) and have a student find the matching letters that would make those sounds. Then, have them jump on the letters they think and say the word they made. For example, if you say, “mmm”, they will find the ‘M’ on the mat. You say […]

Rhyming

Place a vowel on the center of the mat. Pick a letter that will make the ending of a word (e. g. a-t) Say the ending sound you made with your students. Ask students what beginning letter they could choose that would make a word. Ask if there are any other letters that would make […]

Write It

After doing several of the other activities challenge students to make as many real words as possible. Place a vowel in the center and have students sit around the mat and write down as many real words as they can. Have them take turns reading their lists.

Mad Word Hatter – Blending

Write several words that can be made for each mat out on index cards. Place them all in a box/hat etc. Have a student draw a card and say the word out loud (but not showing it). Have another student pick the correct vowel for the word, place it on the mat and jump the […]

Define It

Ask students to define the word they create.

Mad Libs

Use the mat to make up a funny short story by having students take turns jumping on different blocks and inserting a word into the sentence. It is okay to be silly but tell them it needs to make sense. The teacher can add article adjectives or conjunctions etc. as needed to make it flow.

Bean Bag Decides

Have a student toss three bean bags onto the mat. In the order they landed ask the student to make a sentence using each kind of word respectively. If they cannot make a complete sentence from the words ask what type of word is missing to make a complete thought. For example: Bean bags land […]

Race to It

Choose a student to say a word while the other students see who can be the first to jump on the correct classification of that word on the mat. The first to the correct answer calls out the next word.

Make a Story

Have several students choose a homophone on the mat and stand on it. (One from each group) Have the student closest to the start begin a story with a sentence or part of a sentence that includes the word they are on. Continue down the mat with each student contributing to the story.