Pick a Blend Game & Printables

This is a game I played with Abby while the other kids were napping. It is a game that can help teach your kids blends, but it can also be adapted to younger readers as well.  For you non-teachers, bl, cr, sm, st, dr, fl, gr, cr spl, and scr are examples of  “consonant blends.”  It seems natural to us readers to put these two sounds together, but it’s not always intuitive to your beginning reader.  This is a game where you have two game boards.  I just took construction paper and folded to to make 6 equal squares.  You can also do eight, and that’s what the sets below are geared.  Honestly, I just folded my paper wrong and adapted since I knew I didn’t have a lot of time.  You write second half of the potential words on the squares of the paper.  Then, I took index cards and cut them up into thirds and wrote the blends on these cards.  Here are some sets you could do (they grow in difficulty).  One of my readers put this into a document so that I could provide a printable.  What an amazing act of kindness!  Thank you so much, Nicole!!!

Set One:

blends:  bl, bl, cr, cr, dr, dw, dw, fl, gl, gl gr, pr, pr, sk, sl, sl, sn, sp, sp, st, sw, sw, tr, tr

game sheet 1: ape, oat, ast, ill, ell, and, ash, ide

game sheet 2: ay, ame, ime, ide, im, ob, ib, ed
PDF file of this mat and the blends: Mat and Blends #1

Set Two:

blends: bl, bl, br, cl, cl, cl, cr, dr, dw, fl, gr, gr, pl, sk, sl, sm, sn, sp, sp, st, st, sw, sw, tr, tw

game sheet 1: at, ack, ake, een, ar, op, ope

game sheet 2: een esh, ip, im, un, am, ine, aim

PDF file of this mat and the blends: Mat & Blends #2

Set Three:

blends: cl, cr, cr, dr, fl, fr, fr, gl, gl, pl, pr, pr, sc, sc, sc, sl, sm, sm, st, st, sw, sw, tr, tw

game sheet 1: ess, ing, ad, esh, ar, ab, all, at

game sheet 2: all, ash, ig, ay, ess, ame, ar, ee

PDF file of this mat and the blends: Mat & Blends #3

Set Four:

blends, dr, fr, gl, gr, pr, sc, scr, scr, shr,shr, sp, spl, spl, spr, spr, squ, squ, st, str, str, sw, thr, thr

game sheet 1: eam, ub, imp, ill, ay, ing, are, eak

game sheet 2: ed, int, ash, ead, ee, eet, int, out

PDF file of this mat and the blends: Mat & Blends #4

You can begin by going over some of the word endings on the board.  You can also do the blends if you want, but they’ll pick up both throughout the game.  Now it’s time to begin the game.  Both of you get a game board.  Lay the blends upside down in a draw pile.  Grab a blend.  Try and figure out where it goes by reading the blend with the ending sounds.  You will have a bunch of nonsense words.  For example, if you draw a bl in set one, and you have game sheet one, you will read through…blape, bloat, blast, blill, blell, bland, blash, blide.  You might decide you’ll match your bl with blast to make an actual words.  Set it there, and it’s the other person’s turn. If you can’t make a word with the blend you have, it’s the other player’s turn. Take turns.  Whoever fills their game board first wins.  This is a game I learned from a great book, “Games for Reading,” by Peggy Kaye that I used a lot when I had my own tutoring business.