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Teach letter sounds with alphabet action cards!

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Today I’m sharing a set of free alphabet action cards – in two different versions!

Learn letters and their sounds with these fun (and free!) alphabet action cards!

(This post contains affiliate links.)

A few months ago, I finished teaching my Three the alphabet through our simple letter of the week activities.

Learn letters and their sounds with these fun (and free!) alphabet action cards!

She loved it, and is busy writing letters wherever she goes – as you can see in the above story about a “cweepy monster.” 🙂

One thing she hasn’t picked up on is letter sounds; she knows just a few of them. Her older siblings learned these relatively easily as we did our alphabet activities, so I realized that I needed to try something new.

The trick is that it needs to be something that feels like playing, because I am not going to drill my three-year-old on letter sounds.

(Not that it would work anyway.)

As I was studying my book Phonics They Use, by Pat Cunningham, she suggested creating a set of alphabet exercise cards. When you use them enough, children start associating particular letters with an action and eventually learn each letter’s sound.

So … I gave it a try!

Learn letters and their sounds with these fun (and free!) alphabet action cards!

There are two versions of cards. When you print this set front to back, you get the lowercase letter on the front …

Learn letters and their sounds with these fun (and free!) alphabet action cards!

And you get the action on the back of the card.

Learn letters and their sounds with these fun (and free!) alphabet action cards!

G is for go!

Learn letters and their sounds with these fun (and free!) alphabet action cards!

R is for read.

Learn letters and their sounds with these fun (and free!) alphabet action cards!

X is sort for for mix. (That tricky letter x!)

Learn letters and their sounds with these fun (and free!) alphabet action cards!

A is for apple.

I know, I know. Apple isn’t an action word. The only one I could come up with was act, and that wasn’t something my Three was going to understand. I had to get creative with some of the short vowels, but they do have an action associated with them.

A … eat an apple

O… get on something

U… get under something

Learn letters and their sounds with these fun (and free!) alphabet action cards!

We had fun using the cards outdoors on a beautiful summer day, but they’re simple enough that you can do them inside, too. This is the other set of cards. They’re single-sided.

Learn letters and their sounds with these fun (and free!) alphabet action cards!

You can even “go” in a messy playroom.

Learn letters and their sounds with these fun (and free!) alphabet action cards!

Here’s our letter o card. Another one of those tricky letters whose key word isn’t exactly an action. Blame the alphabet.

Learn letters and their sounds with these fun (and free!) alphabet action cards!

Getting “on” a box lid.

Learn letters and their sounds with these fun (and free!) alphabet action cards!

E is for exercise. That’s a fun one!

So are they working?

Well, we’re having fun. And my Three is getting more practice recognizing lower case letters. I can’t say that it’s helped her learn her letter sounds yet. One thing I do is emphasize the letter sound each time we use a card. “M! /m/, /m/, March!”

We’ll get there. All in good time!

Here are some other ways to use the cards:

  • Laminate the cards, hole punch the upper left corner, and put them on a ring. Then go through the cards one by one just for fun.
  • Let your child be the teacher. He/she can name each letter, and you do the action. (My Three loves this.)
  • After you’ve been doing the cards a while, see if your child can remember the action word before turning the two-sided card over.
  • If you really want to use these cards to teach letter sounds, it’s wise to do just a few at a time. Make a big deal about each new key word. Act it out with props. Get silly!
  • Lay the cards in alphabetical order on the floor.
  • Just let your little one have fun playing!

Learn letters and their sounds with these fun (and free!) alphabet action cards!

So how will you use these cards? Let us know in the comments!

P.S. Yes, they ˆ come in both color and black and white.

Have you seen our best-selling letter of the week curriculum?

 

© 2017 – 2018, Anna G. All rights reserved.

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Comments

  1. What a lovely set of alphabet cards-thanks for sharing. My kinesthetic learners will love these! I plan to use them in small groups for letter/letter sound review.

    Reply

  2. Hello,
    I’m a mom of year old twin and on a tight budget. Im about to purchase your letter of the week curriculum. What else would you reccomand to use as i try to homeschoolmy boys

    Reply

    • Hi Lashon! If you send me an email with more information about the ages of your boys and what they already know and do, I can point you in the right direction. 🙂 It’s anna(at)themeasuredmom(dot)com.

      Reply

  4. I plan to put these on a ring and flip through the letters of the week when we need a brain break in my kindergarten class.

    Reply

  9. These are awesome for preschoolers when they need to exercise or move around from sitting too long. With school starting soon they will be very helpful and I like the idea of putting them on a card and ring. Very helpful

    Reply

  12. I love that these cards have the lowercase letters on them. Most of the cards available for youngers are uppercase. The clipart is adorable, and since I’m a big fan of multi-sensory teaching, I love having the picture, the word, and a motion all on one card! Thank you!!

    Reply

  14. Thanks again, Anna! Yet one more resource that I can pull out for alphabet review. I will probably use these whole-group and we will just do the motions you provide in your pictures.

    I have some teeny tiny abc exercise cards in black and white that my kids have loved, but yours are larger and more colorful and therefore more attention-grabbing.

    THANKS SO MUCH FOR ALL YOU DO.

    Reply

  15. They are brilliant cards my grand children are picking up the Alphabet quicker then the normal way of teaching. I have printed out both the colour and black and white as I thought the black and white would come in handy as a useful colouring activity. Brilliant cards I love them

    Reply

  17. Love the cards for my kinder class. I did change a few of the actions and pictures that suited my style better. A for astronaut (float on moon). C for clap. F for fly I like fall as well. G for giggle. H for hide but I like hop as well. L for lay down. R for run in place. T for tap foot. For z I switched to zip up a jacket.

    Reply

  19. You’re the best! I printed these out and laminated them! I just have to get a metal ring to put them all together. So many great rescources here! Thanks for all you do!!!

    Reply

  20. I like to pass the cards around and have students act out their card while classmates try and guess the letter and or the sound the letter makes. Those more advanced can name an object that starts or ends with the sound too. You can do whole group or divide the class into groups of 4 or 5 and using your assessments group them according to the specific letters they have not yet learned for extra repetitive practice.

    Reply

  21. Thank you for this wonderful resource. I’m going to use it with a student with special learning needs, she will love acting out all the actions to each letter. Thank you

    Reply

  22. Thank you so much! I have found the perfect source that I was looking for. I downloaded these to print out. I am excited to teach my kids. I believe that there would be good result.

    Reply

  23. These look great! May I suggest for A “applause” – I know it’s a long word but kids know clap- so it might just work. If you happen to be looking- no pressure. These are all wonderful resources. God bless! Thank you for sharing your wealth.

    Reply

    • That’s a great word! The reason I wouldn’t use it, though, is because it doesn’t have the clear short a sound. For this set of cards I wanted to make sure that the letter’s main sound (as in the short vowel sound or the more common consonant sound) was easy to distinguish.

      Reply

  24. Hello, my name is Kathleen and I’m a Babysitter Grandma to 3 of my 4 grand babies. I’ve been working with my 4 yr old since birth and he is more than ready for preschool, which he started just 5 months before he turned 4. I’ve grabbed everything free off the internet to teach him with, and I’ve compiled a notebook full off pages and am beginning to use these tools on my next little boy. When I saw your site with the community pages I had to grab them and put them in my book. I’m excited to see what else I can use of yours to teach him and his new little sister with.

    Reply

    • Hi Kathleen! It’s wonderful to hear what an active role you’re taking in their education. I think you’ll find many useful resources on my site. 🙂

      Reply

  25. For your letter actions might I suggest A-choo! For /a/, Ouch! For /o/ or Open. Also I think X marks the spot look for treasure.

    Reply

    • Thanks for the suggestions! For each featured picture I do want its beginning sound to match the most common sound of the letter (short vowel sound, /k/ for letter c, etc.) – so that makes it tricky.

      Reply

  27. What a lovely set of alphabet cards-thanks for sharing. Thank you so much! I have found the perfect source that I was looking for. I downloaded these to print out. I am excited to teach my pupils. I believe that there would be a good result.

    Reply

    Reply

  29. Hi Mrs Anna
    Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful ideas. I work with children in the crèche(6mths-1yr9mths) and I have printed some of your printable works for my kids, they love the colorful letters of the alphabets. I will love to use this too with them.

    Reply

  31. Thank you for the idea!!!
    I love the photos ideas with the letters.
    I have students who are part of the LIFE Skills program and teaching them the letters with no visuals is a struggle! This way I can get them up and moving instead of just sitting to learn the letters. I am taking this idea and taking actual photos of the students doing the action for each letters in hope that it will motivate them to see their photos to letters!
    Thanks Again!!
    Judy

    Reply

  32. I really am in love with your resources, they are so interesting and fun. These actions are great, i can’t wait to use them with my kids. thanks a million 🙂

    Reply

  34. I just have to say your site is by far the best one I have seen! I’ve been looking at quite a few sites for ideas and material to teach my preschooler at home. I have bought workbooks for him to do, but he gets bored quickly. I can’t wait to try some of the ideas you suggest. Thank you so much!

    Reply

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