LEGO Word Family Sorting

Today, I’m sharing one more LEGO activity for Toddler Approved’s LEGO Week! Be sure to visit her post to see all of the activities shared.

 

If you’ve followed along for very long, you know that one of my favorite ways to teach spelling is with word sorts. Why? They are hands-on, developmentally appropriate, and allow kids to make their own phonics generalizations. But did you know that LEGO bricks and word sorting can go hand-in-hand? Here’s how we did it!
*This post contains affiliate links.

Preparing your Word Family Sorting Activity

• First, I grabbed 18 DUPLO LEGO bricks (the ones that have 8 bumps on top).
• I picked three different word families to feature. Since NJoy has been working on short vowel words all school year (and a few blends), I chose to make it a bit trickier so that they all ended with a different vowel + g. If sorting word family words this close in spellings would confuse your child, be sure to pick 3 word families that are different enough such as –at, -og, and -en.
• I used a Sharpie and wrote the word family words on each block. (Sharpie does come off with rubbing alcohol, but if you prefer, you could use mailing labels instead or maybe even dry erase marker.)

• I placed all the words in a container, except for three words: wag, pig and dog. These became our head or reference words for our sort.

Word Family Sorting with LEGO Bricks

• First, I laid out one word from each word family on the floor (wag, pig, and dog). We read each head word.

• One by one, he picked a DUPLO LEGO brick word from the container, placed it under the matching word family pattern (either -ag, -ig, or -og) and we then read each word together.
• Afterwards, he wanted to connect all the columns as we read each word once more.

• I picked up one column at a time and asked him, “How are all these words the same?”
• He needed a little help, but after the first column, he began to notice how the words in each separate column shared ending word chunks (word family chunks) and that they rhymed.
• We broke apart all the words and put them back into the container. I encouraged him to give it a go again by himself. He wasn’t interested at the time, so we finished the lesson. (But I did “catch” him giving it a try later that same day during rest time…hehe.)

More Ideas you May Enjoy:

• Short Vowels Word Study app– Level 1 has activities for spelling, reading, and writing with word families {$2.99}
• Word Family LEGO Building – apparently Jenea from I Can Teach my Child and I had the same idea. Hop on over to check out hers.
• Decoding with Word Families
• Flip a Word: Short Vowel Word Family {FREE Printable Pack}
• Counting Sounds in Words {FREE Printable Pack}
• LEGO Syllable Counting
• Reading the Alphabet— a FREE 31-week curriculum for kids who know their abc’s and are ready for something more. 5 of the lessons feature Word Family activities. The newly updated and expanded bundle pack is also available for purchase!

Follow This Reading Mama’s board Learning with LEGOS on Pinterest.

 

Enjoy!

~Becky