Do you ever feel like the months between winter and spring break are extra long and grueling?? It may seem like time is ticking slow, but that might only be because you aren’t having enough FUN!
I decided to forget the winter blues and really ICE things up with these engaging, hands on, winter themed literacy activities! In this post, you’ll find FIVE exciting literacy activities to help your students practice important skills that you can use during small group instruction, centers, or as independent practice. No matter how you use it, your students are sure to have FUN while learning.
Did you know that when students learn through play they more quickly understand concepts and skills?
“Scientists have discovered that it takes approximately 400 repetitions to create a new synapse in the brain, unless it is done in play, in which case it only takes 10 to 20 repetitions.”
You can learn more about the importance of play HERE but let’s get into our own fun! Check out all the activities below!!
Count and Sort
Understanding how to break words into chunks, or their syllable is crucial in helping students quickly and correctly decode words. Mastering syllables is a great way to help students not only read more fluently, but accurately. It can get tricky at times so in order to lessen the frustration, we instead bring in the fun! Help your students practice this skill with this super fun count and sort activity.
Have students lay out their hot chocolate cups that represent the amount of syllables in a word. They will then sort through their marshmallows, reading and determining the amount of syllables before placing them under the correct chocolate mug. Talk about fun AND learning!
Feed the Blends
Feed the blends is EXACTLY what it sounds like: a fun feeding frenzy!! Students will LOVE sorting their picture card blends into the mouths of various winter animals. They will be super engaged and it’s perfect practice for blending sounds in the process!
These cute animals are constructed by reusing a few tissue boxes so the planet is also thanking you with this fun activity! Students will randomly choose a picture card to read. Once they decipher what animal matches the blend of their word, they can feed it to them and repeat!
Short and Long Vowels
Learning about short and long vowels is essential to helping students successfully decode and read. With these activities students can practice CVC and CVCE words in tons of hands-on fun ways!
Students will have a blast sorting snowflakes, determining what pictures have short or long vowels. They can sort them on a winter mat or inside some adorable snow globes! Do you have kids that love matching games? These short and long vowel mittens are just for them! There is also a fun board game for those little competitors who can race each other to the end of the Winter Vowel Wonderland by correctly reading CVC and CVCE words. No matter what game they like, they are sure to master this skill AND have all kinds of frozen fun!
Long vs Short Vowel Activities
Textured Tracing
Of course there was SNOW way I could share all of these with you and not give you guys a freebie! To thank you for subscribing, check out this un-BRR-lieveably fun letter tracing activity to kick away all the winter woes!
We know how important it is for students to learn how to correctly form letters. Tracing with pencil and paper is cool and all, but how about adding a little texture to the mix? Simply add rice, shaving cream, or sand and let students have a blast while practicing this important skill! Double cool points for you from your little learners that THRIVE with that sensory aspect.
Love this FREE resource?
Assembling in the Artic
This activity let’s our little learners build the cutest penguin posse you’ve ever seen, while mastering those important high frequency words. Committing those sight words, heart words, or other “non-decodable” words to memory are crucial for students while reading. Mastering these can really help with fluency, prosody and overall comprehension.
With this activity, students will LOVE practicing spelling, reading, and mastering all kinds of important words with these adorable penguins. Kids will grab a glacier, read the word, and get to constructing their team of penguins to correctly spell the word. This activity includes FRY’s First 100 Words AND a bonus editable version for you to add your own words!
Hands On Editable Sight Word Activity
I really hope you enjoyed learning about some fun and engaging winter themed literacy activities! If you love these, you can grab the jam packed bundle HERE!
I really hope you enjoyed learning about some fun and engaging winter themed literacy activities! Don’t forget to subscribe to my email list! Not only will you get the most up to date tips, tricks, and classroom projects… and of course more fun FREEBIES including the winter digraph FREEBIE! If you would like to learn about this and other things happening in my classroom follow me @sweetnsauerfirsties on Instagram.
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Where do you purchase the tray with the sorting circles?
I got those in the Target Dollar Spot!