Once your Kindergarten students learn how to blend, spell, and read CVC words fluently, you may wonder, well where do I go from here? The next phonics skill I work on with my students is digraphs or consonant blends. Today, I will show you some of my favorite consonant blend activities for Kindergarten students. You can use these consonant blend activities in your whole group lesson, as a center activity, or as independent work!
What is a Consonant Blend?
Consonant Blends are two letters that make two sounds that form a blend. The most common blends are L- blends, like “block” or “claw”, R- blends, like “crab” or “frog”, and S- blends, like “scare” and “smell”. They are two separate phonemes (sounds) but we teach these phonemes together because they “blend” together when sounding them out. Here you can find a list of all the consonant blends we teach in Kindergarten.
Grab this visual here for free!
Consonant Blends Activity #1: Matching Mats
The first skill you will want to teach is how to identify the blend in a word. You can practice this orally by saying a word, “fly” and then asking your students what blend they heard- “fl”.
This Matching Mats activity is a great way to begin identifying the blend and knowing the pattern and sound that goes with it. Students will look at their mat, and then identify the blend for each picture. They will find that matching blend and stick it next to the picture. I like using velcro for this activity so students can reuse it over and over again.
Try a sample of this activity for free!
Consonant Blends Activity #2: Picture Sort
Consonant Blends can be tricky for students to know the difference between each blend. Students need to be able to sort pictures based on what blend they hear in the word.
This picture sort activity can be used to identify the blend in a word, also called phoneme isolation. Students will look at the picture, then sort it under the correct matching blend. It is helpful to do similar spelled blends together, like bl, cl, and gl or bl and br blends.
Consonant Blends Activity #3: Roll and Read
Next, you will want to practice reading words with blends. I suggest starting with words that have short vowel word family endings, like “flag” or “crib”. If you want to challenge your students more, you can add in CVCe word family endings.
Roll and read can be used as a whole group activity, during centers, or as independent work. Students will roll a dice, then read a word underneath the matching number.
Consonant Blends Activity #4: Magnet Mats
In Kindergarten, you do not need to focus on having your students be able to spell the entire word, but rather spelling the blend (ie: bl- or cr-) correctly. They can always spell the word phonetically, but should at least have the blend spelled correctly. Once they are in First Grade, they will learn how to spell more words with consonant blends.
Magnet Mats are a hands-on way to practice spelling those blends. Students will take a card, look at the picture, and identify the blend. Then, using magnets, they will spell the blend.
Want to try these consonant blends activities? Find them and more below!
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First Grade Phonics Beginning and Ending Consonant Blends Unit$15.00
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Consonant Blends and Digraphs Phonics Center Activities and Games$6.00
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Kindergarten Phonics Consonant Blends and Digraphs Unit | Lessons and Activities$15.00
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Consonant Blends and Digraphs Phonics Worksheets | No Prep Phonics Activities$5.00
You can find the Digraphs and Consonant Blends Phonics Unit for Kindergarten on TPT here which includes all of these activities.
If you teach First Grade, I have a separate unit for each. The Digraphs Unit covers both beginning and ending digraphs, along with more spelling activities. The Consonant Blends Unit covers both beginning and ending consonant blends, along with additional spelling activities.
Shop all Consonant Blends Resources on TPT here
If you are looking for more activities and how to practice digraphs, check out this blog post here: 4 Activities to Practice Digraphs in Kindergarten.