Creative Family Fun

Your one-stop shop for kids activities and family fun

Reading Activities for Kids

Stacking Rhyming Words

By

Rhyming words are fun to say.

And make reading work feel like play.

Hooray!

Alright, alright. I’m not going to rhyme this whole post today. (Kidding!) But we will be having fun with rhymes as we build our own reading game for some fun rhyming practice.

Practice rhymes with this simple reading game for kids.

Disclosure: This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. Please see my Disclosure Page for more details.

Why is rhyming important?

It’s one of the stepping stones to learning how to read. It’s all a part of phonemic awareness.

But, wait, what’s that?

Phonemic awareness is simply learning about language, like the sounds and how they go together. Learning to hear the sounds and how to decode them. It’s something our kids are doing every day.

But, rhyming doesn’t stop the minute a child learns to read. It’s a great thing to practice to help your kids get even better at reading and decoding words.

This game is an easy way to to have fun practicing rhymes.

Practice rhymes with this simple reading game for kids.

Supplies Needed:

2 empty paper towel rolls
4 colors of craft paint
Scissors
Black marker

How to Make the Game:

Divide your cardboard tubes in half, either cut them or eyeball them. Paint each half a different color so you have four different colors of cardboard tube.

Practice rhymes with this simple reading game for kids.

After your tubes have dried, cut each color segment into four different pieces. You’ll have 16 different sections, four in each color.

Divide your tubes into sets so that each set has one of each color. Use your black marker to write your words. Each set will be one group of rhyming words, for example: clip, chip, hip, and dip. Change up the rhyme for each set.

Hint: This game is a great way to incorporate words your child needs to work on. Are there words from a sight word list you can choose? Are there specific ending sounds your child needs to work on, like -eep? Make sure to include those words.

Practice rhymes with this simple reading game for kids.

How to Play:

Mix up all your cardboard words on a table. Have your child make stacks of each set.

Stacking can get a bit tricky at times and your rhyming tower may collapse. But, that’s part of the challenge!

If the stacking gets frustrating, make pyramids. Or, just line up your rhyming words.

Practice rhymes with this simple reading game for kids.

Extend the Fun

Instead of including four words in each set, use only two words so you can match up pairs.

Turn this into a hide and seek game. Hide the cardboard tubes around the room and challenge your kids to find the rhymes.

See if they can name even more words for each set. How many words can you come up with?

Have fun practicing rhyming words with this fun DIY reading game.

Practice rhymes with this simple reading game for kids.

Did you enjoy this post? If so, you can share the above image on Facebook or the image below is perfect for Pinning.

Practice rhyming words with this simple DIY reading game for kids, stacking rhyming words. Build towers out of rhymes and see how high you can make them! #rhyming #literacy #kindergarten #BetterThanHomework

If you liked this post, you may also like one of these reading games:

Word Family Four Square

The -at Hat: Word Family Game

AD Word Family Activity: Highlighter Words

DIY Sight Word Memory Game

Stomp it Out Phonics Game for Kids at School Time Snippets

Fun Reading Pointers You Can Make or Buy

By

Tracking the words on a page is one of the many things a child learns when they’re learning to read. (There’s so much more to reading than just figuring out the words!) Reading pointers are a great tool to use to help train the eyes to track the words.

When we made our Magic Wand Reading Pointers I started thinking about what else you could use as a reading pointer. So, I went on a search to see what other options I could find. I found some fun stuff! Check them out below.

These fun reading pointers you can make or buy are all perfect to help your child track the words on the page when they're learning to read.

There are so many creative ideas! Some are quite silly and others are out-of-the-box uses for ordinary items.

It would be fun to have a selection to choose from, both at home and in the classroom, to help your child track their words while they’re learning to read.

Disclosure: This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. Please see my Disclosure Page for more details.

These fun reading pointers you can make or buy are all perfect to help your child track the words on the page when they're learning to read.

Reading Pointers to Make

Pictured left to right.

Bow ties, jewels, googly eyes, and more. Imagination Soup shows you how to make a whole bucket full of simple reading pointers.

These Hand Print Flower Bookmarks from Live Craft Love The Darice Craft Blog would make great reading pointers and they’d be a lot of fun to make.

Use the Force to be a more powerful reader. Kids would love using these DIY Lightsaber Reading Pointers from Sippy Cup Mom to track their words.

Do you have a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fan at home? They’d love these Popsicle Stick Ninja Turtles from Glued to My Crafts.

Keep your eyes on your words with these fun (and easy to make) googly eye reading pointers from Terri’s Teaching Treasures.

Add some magic to your reading with our fun and fancy Magic Wand Reading Pointers.

If your child is into sports, they’ll love these All-Star Reading Pointers from Better Than Homework. (Not pictured.)

Use LEGOs to make some fun reading pointers. Lalymom has a selection of 3 different reading pointers you can make using even the most basic LEGO set.  (Not pictured.)

These fun reading pointers you can make or buy are all perfect to help your child track the words on the page when they're learning to read.

Reading Pointers to Buy

Pictured left to right.

Think a little outside the box. An inexpensive box of drink stirrers are a perfect tool to use as reading pointers.

Check the party favors section! These long glittery fingernails are easy to pop on your finger to follow along as you read.

It can sometimes be challenging for kids when they start reading chapter books with many lines on a page. I love these Finger Pointer Reading Strips for the structure they provide by highlighting an individual line.

Here’s another outside the box idea. Use fancy chopsticks to track your words on a page.

Some bookmarks can easily double as a reading pointer. The hands at the end of these bookmarks are just the right size to use.

Classic is always good and these Learning Resources Hand Pointers are a great choice for a reading pointer.

Which ones would your kids love best?

These fun reading pointers you can make or buy are all perfect to help your child track the words on the page when they're learning to read.


DIY Sight Word Memory Game

By

Practice sight words with this simple sight word memory game. It's easy to make and can be personalized for any set of sight words.
My 1st grade daughter has been working hard at reading. That means I’ve been working hard right along with her. She still has some areas where she stumbles and one of those areas is sight words. I took note of some of the words she was struggling with recently and made a simple sight word memory game.
This game is completely customizable and only takes about 10 minutes to make. What could be easier?
Let’s get started!
Disclosure: This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. Please see my disclosure for more details.
 
Practice sight words with this simple sight word memory game. It's easy to make and can be personalized for any set of sight words.
Supplies Needed
Colored card stock
Ruler
Pencil
Scissors
Markers
To Make the Game: Use your ruler to create a grid on your card stock. I made squares that were 2 inches by 2 inches. This size was perfect for a game, plus I was able to get 20 squares per sheet of card stock with little waste. Once you have your grid, cut out all of your squares. I found that 20 squares was the perfect amount for the game.
Practice sight words with this simple sight word memory game. It's easy to make and can be personalized for any set of sight words.

Decide on your words. I chose 10 words that my daughter needed to work on. I selected from words that were on a take-home sheet from her teacher along with a few that she had been struggling with while we read together. I used a marker to write the words on the card stock squares. You’ll want two copies of each word, so I needed 20 squares for my 10 words.

Special Note: Use your kid’s washable markers to write the words. Permanent markers, like Sharpies, will bleed through the card stock and
you’ll be able to see the word through the back side. I learned that the combination of colored card stock plus washable marker will insure that you won’t be able to see the words when the game pieces are upside down.
Practice sight words with this simple sight word memory game. It's easy to make and can be personalized for any set of sight words.
To play the game: Mix up your cards and turn them all upside down. Player one turns over two cards. If they match, player 1 keeps the cards and plays again. If they don’t match, turn the cards back over and it’s player 2’s turn. Keep playing until all the matches are made.
The rules are identical to the rules of the classic Memory game. Your child can focus on having fun and reviewing sight words without having to learn new game play rules.
My daughter had a blast playing and so did I. It really is a fun way to practice sight words and a great way to connect with your kids after school.
Practice sight words with this simple sight word memory game. It's easy to make and can be personalized for any set of sight words.

Scarecrow Compound Word Match Game

By

You know what’s fun about the word scarecrow?

It’s a compound word. A compound word is a word made up of two words joined together, like airplane, homemade, and football.

Do you know what else is cool about compound words? They’re really fun to learn about!

To add to the fun of learning compound words, I took 20 words related to farms and turned them into a fun compound word match game.

Play this printable match game to combine different fall words to make a compound word match game. It's a fun and easy reading game for your second grader.

Disclosure: This post contains Amazon Affiliate and other affiliate links. Please see my Disclosure Page for more details.

Make your compound word match game

To prep your game, you’ll need cardstock, a printer, and a download of the game.

Click this link above to download the game.

It’s best to print it on cardstock both for durability and to prevent players from being able to see through from the backside. The game prints on two sheets of paper and has 20 cards total.

Once you’ve printed the game, cut out all the cards.

Now it’s time to play!

Play this printable match game to combine different fall words to make a compound word match game. It's a fun and easy reading game for your second grader.

How to Play

The rules are the same as any other memory game.

Place all the cards face down in a grid on the table. Player one turns over two cards.

Do they make a compound word? In the picture above they do.

If you’ve got a compound word, take both cards off the board and turn over two more. If you don’t have a compound word, flip the cards back over and it’s player two’s turn.

Keep playing until all the cards are removed from the board.

Play this printable match game to combine different fall words to make a compound word match game. It's a fun and easy reading game for your second grader.

Play with different words

Do you want a different set of words? You can make your own compound word match game!

Use index cards and write your compound words. Since a compound word is made up or two words, write the word on two cards – one part of the word on each card.

You can use this comprehensive list of compound words for inspiration.

Play this printable match game to combine different fall words to make a compound word match game. It's a fun and easy reading game for your second grader.

We had so much fun learning about compound words! Find more scarecrow-themed activities from the 2nd Grade Blogging Crew below:

Free Scarecrow Expanded Form Memory Game from Life Over C’s
Scarecrow Syllables for Second Grade from Look! We’re Learning!
Make a Scarecrow Literacy Game from Planet Smarty Pants
Scarecrow Measures from Crafty Kids at Home
Beautiful Scarecrow Silhouette Art Project from School Time Snippets
Scarecrow Place Value Math from Sugar Aunts
Scarecrow Craft with Landscape from Sallie Borrink Learning

You may also like one of these fun reading activities:

Magic Wand Reading Pointers

Bats in a Cave Sight Word Game

Sight Word Tallies

Sight Word Pick and Spell

Go on a Fact Finding Mission

By

We received the most amazing book in the mail a few weeks ago. It was packed full of fun facts about everything under the sun. Seriously. There was everything from animals, history, and the ocean, to a section full of the most disgusting facts you can imagine. The book all by itself was amazing, but we decided to have even more fun with it. We used it to go on a Fact Finding Mission!
Disclosure: We received a free copy of this book from Parragon Books, all opinions and the related activity are our own. This post also contains Amazon Affiliate links. Please see my disclosure for more details.
This fantastic book is called 5000 Amazing Facts: Incredible but True Facts About Everything by Discovery Kids. They’re not kidding. There are facts about everything such as dinosaurs, meerkats, black holes, populations, and world treasures, just to name a few. This is not a book that you have to read straight through. You can open it up to any page and enjoy. My 3rd grader thinks this is the most awesome book ever!
Even though this book is so enjoyable on it’s own, I thought it would be a fun idea to play a little fact finding game. I leafed through the book and found 10 different facts that were interesting. (Finding only 10 was quite a challenge!) I then created questions for those facts and challenged the girls to figure out the answer.
It seems like a daunting task to find the answer to only 10 questions from a book of 5000 facts, but I was very deliberate in my questions. The facts in the book are grouped together by topic and I made the topic very obvious in my question. For example, question 1 is “What whale has no sense of smell?” The girls were able to find that question on the whale page. The questions also went in book order, so they didn’t have to go back and forth in the book.
My girls absolutely loved the game and learned so much from it – more than just some fun trivia facts. They learned to find the subject of the question so they could easily find the section of the book they needed. And, they learned how to find the answer to a question in a book. All good research skills they need to know.

 

If you would like to use our Fact Finding Mission, you can grab it at the link below. I’ve even included the answers on a second sheet. It is very specific to this book.
Get the Fact Finding Mission here.
You can go on a fact finding mission with many nonfiction books. You just have to take the time to write out a few questions. It’s a great way to help a kid explore a nonfiction book and helps them learn how to research and find the answer to a question.
Thanks again to Parragon Books for 5000 Amazing Facts, Incredible but True Facts About Everything. You can click on the book link to purchase.