One Minute Phonics
Initial Blends
Allow your class to work on their initial consonant blends with this fun, printable activity.
Sink the Sub
Allow your children to sink the sub by writing 8 words with your focus sound within the torpedoes.
Word Wheels
Allow your children to create different words using the word wheels.
You children will write a letter/s in each section of the two wheels and write the focus sound in the middle of the rectangular box. E.g. medial ‘o’ or ‘oa’. Using split pins, you must then connect the wheels to the rectangular frame.
Your children can now create different words.
Double Vowels and Split Digraphs
This is an editable phonics game that allows you to add in whatever sounds you want to work on with your class. This particular example looks at double vowels and split digraphs.
You can play this as a board game or a quick recall of sounds and words.
Board Game
The children will place their counters on the start block. The children must roll a die and once they land on a step, they must say a word that has the sound in it and write it on the word sheet provided. If they get the word right, they stay on the block. If they get the word wrong, they move back to their last block. The first person to get to the Teaching Cave logo wins.
Quick Recall
The children will go around the board, saying the sounds and writing a word in the word boxes on the page provided.
Give the children one counter and one minute on the clock. The children must say the sounds out loud so the teacher and teaching assistant can listen as they go along. Once the child has said the sound, they must write a word that has that sound within it on the word sheet provided. Once they have written a word, they move their counter to the next sound and see how far they can get. Ask the children to write ‘day 1’ beside the sound their counter finished on to monitor their progress. The next day, the children will start on the ‘day 1’ block and start the next stage.
Once the game has been completed and the children have grasped all the sounds and words, revise all sounds. Give a new word sheet and inform the children that they must begin at the ‘Start’ block. They have one minute to see how many sounds and words they can remember.
One Minute Phonics - Scrabble
This activity card can be applied to many activities.
Your class can try to link as many of their high frequency, phonics, topic or spelling words as they can. This works using the scrabble format.
You can give your class a word to begin with or you can allow them to choose a word. Ensure the word is long to get the most out of the activity.
You class will love the challenge of creating as many words as they can.
To extend this activity, add in values for each letter to create scores and link it to numeracy.
One Minute Phonics - CVC Stage 1
This one minute phonics activity works on using different letters to create CVC words. The letters are split into boxes with vowels in the middle.
This activity develops skills and understanding of medial vowels. Children find medial vowel challenging so this phonics activity card will give them a quick blast to consolidate the learning of CVC words.
Encourage the children to use cubes, scrabble blocks, magnetic letters or write them in books or on a whiteboard.
Time your class and this will give them a target to beat each day.
Real or Nonsense?
Complete the worksheet by writing in real and nonsense words and the children must identify them by circling the real words.
Link this activity to your phonics and sounds of the week or key words.
One Minute Phonics - CVC Creator
This is a super resource that includes 12 flashcards using the medial vowels a e i o & u.
Your class must create as many words as they can using the flashcards. They can do this practically using cubes or scrabble pieces or by writing the CVC words in books or whiteboards. Each medial vowel has two different cards and your children must ensure that the medial vowel, which is a different colour, is in the middle of each word.
This is a great resource as a warm up activity during registration and as a plenary to consolidate what has been learnt.
One Minute Phonics - CVC Stage 2
Now that your class have completed stage one and are familiar with creating CVC words practically, they can now move on to create some CVC words from memory.
Each box has a different medial vowel. The children will have one minute to fill one box. Once the task is over, your more able children can try to write a sentence using one or more CVC words. Your less able children can write the words on the lines.
There are also blank activity cards with no medial vowel E.g. _ _ _ to challenge your more able children, as they must add in the medial vowel also.
You can also use this activity to work on initial and final sounds. You can give each child a different letter throughout the week and they must write a word in each box using that particular letter.
Overall, a fantastic resource!
Consonant Clusters
This is a great phonics resource to have when looking at consonant clusters in words. it looks at different words using the st sk sn sl sp sc sh sm and sw sounds.
Our one minute phonics activity is a great and fast paced way to get your class engaged and focused on their phonics lesson.
The first group of activity cards explore mostly four letter CCVC words. It explores words such as spot, skid, slip, stop, step, spin, scan, scar, shin, ship, swim, smog and many more.
The children can place the different sounds together to see if they can create a word. These specific sounds have also been chosen to develop vowel sounds within words.
The second group activity cards focus on words that have more than four letter to challenge your more able children. Words such as skirt, snail, snake, stamp, swing, smile, speed and skate are some of the many words the children can create.
Click the image to download this resource.
Consonant Clusters - sh, ch, and th
This one minute phonics activity works on the sh, ch and th sounds. The children must match the pictures to the consonant cluster. Some of the pictures have different consonant clusters to challenge your class and ensure they differentiate sounds.
The activity card in each cluster encourages the children to have a go at spelling a few of the sh, ch or th words, complete the sentences and finally, write their own sentence to consolidate the chosen sh word in the context of a sentence.
Initial Clusters
This resource helps your children look at initial clusters in words as well as comparing different sounds to ensure the sounds are learnt correctly.
This activity is very useful for children who won’t always sound out naturally or blend carefully. The children must match the consonant cluster to the pictures and complete the activity card that accompanies the sounds.
This resource explores dr cr fr br tr gr bl sl cl sp sk and st clusters.
Pacman - Consonant Clusters
This is a phonics game based on the format of the original arcade game Pacman.
The children are working on initial consonant clusters and must read the CCVC words to move around the board. This learning game also works on word recognition and improves sight vocabulary.
The children will get into pairs. The first child will start at the Pacman and will try to read all the words to reach the Teaching Cave logo. The second player will choose a ghost and follow player 1’s Pacman. Every 5 seconds, player 2 will move their ghost to the next word in an attempt to catch the Pacman.
Once the children have grasped the game, reduce the waiting time for the ghost.
Pacman - Consonant Clusters (Harder)
This is a phonics game based on the format of the original arcade game Pacman.
The children are working on initial consonant clusters and must read the words to move around the board.
Final Sound Match
The children must try to think of words with the same final sound as the words shown. Inform the children that they can use rhyming words to help or you can challenge your class by getting them to think of words that don’t rhyme.
Final Sounds
This is an example of our one minute phonics task. The children will be given different endings to words. They must then choose beginning sounds and match them to the final sounds to create as many words as they can in one minute.
This resource covers st sk nk lk nd lf lp lt nt pt xt mp ft sounds.
Your children will be able to make words such as fast, blast, desk, mask, tank, pink, walk, talk, sand, band, elf, help, gulp, bolt, felt, slept, kept, text, next, damp, stamp, lift, loft and many more.
Beginning and Final Sounds in Sentences
Your children must recognise the beginning and final sounds and locate them within the sentences.
Your children should use a highlighter for this activity.
Double Vowels
This activity works on recognising mixed double vowel sounds within words.
The children will look for ue ie ea ee ou oi ai oa ue & oe words within the circle and write them on the activity cards below. There are 20 words altogether.
To ensure the children have read and understood the words, there are sentences to complete on the activity card.
Key Word Bingo
Allow your children to work on key words linked to phonics or spellings.
Ask your children to write down words linked to their sound of the day or week. Read out different sentences linked to the words and the children can cover the words should they hear them. E.g. The book was sitting on the shelf.
