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Free Word Family Game: Uno (short a)

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I’m building up my collection of hands-on word family fun.  To add to our other short a printables, I created this free word family game: Uno!

Free Word Family Uno (short a) - the measured mom028

Lately my Four and Six have been obsessed with the classic Uno game.

Since I’m teaching my Four to read by starting with short a word families, I designed this game with him in mind. However, I quickly discovered that this is best for someone who can read these families with more speed.  The game required too much concentration for him to enjoy.   I’ll try again in a few months.

But my Six?  She loved it.

word family uno game

UPDATE: This game gives reading practice with analytic phonics instruction. Analytic phonics is when you use known words or word parts (such as word families) as analogies for figuring out words. Many children do very well with analytic phonics instruction, and this game is great for reading practice. However, as I learn more about the science of reading, I now prefer to start with synthetic phonics instruction. You can learn more about that in this video blog post.  

 

Free Word Family Game

How to play:

  1. Deal 5 cards to each player.
  2. Turn over the top card from the deck.
  3. The first player looks to see if one of his cards matches the turned-up card: it can match in color or word family.  If a card matches, he sets it on top and reads it aloud.  If the player has no matching card in his hand, he draws one card from the deck. He can play that card if it matches.
  4. Players can play a “skip,” “reverse,” or “draw 2” card if it matches the color of the upturned card.  If a player plays a “skip” card, the next player loses a turn.  If he plays a “reverse” card, the direction of play reverses.  If he plays a “draw 2,” the next player draws 2 cards and does not get to play a card on his turn.
  5. Players can play “Wild” cards at any time.  When doing so, they should name the new word family that players must match.
  6. When a player has one card left, he says “Uno.”
  7. The first player to play all his cards wins!

The deck consists of 99 cards:

  • 80 word family cards  (10 cards for each word family: ab, at, ack, ad, am, ag, an, ap)
  • 5 Draw 2 cards (red, yellow, orange, green, blue)
  • 5 Skip cards (red, yellow, orange, green, blue)
  • 5 Reverse cards (red, yellow, orange, green, blue)
  • 4 Wild cards

word family uno game cards

Here’s  a sample page from the download.  If you’d like a balloon pattern on the back of your cards (see the photograph above), print pages 2-23 front to back (page 1 is my Terms of Use).

If you just want the fronts of the cards, you will need to print only the even-numbered pages.

 

Get your free short a card game!

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD

CHECK OUT OUR WORD FAMILY MATS AND GAMES!

Short Vowel Word Family Mats & Games

$10.00

This is a set of 35 printable short vowel word family picture mats with corresponding word cards. The mats come in three different versions – full color with a border, color without a border, and black and white. Each mat also comes with a worksheet and two games.

Buy Now

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41 Comments

    • annageig

      Ha! You know, my two year old wants to play with this too, even though he doesn’t know any words. So does my one year old, but that’s because he likes to bend the cards :P!

      Reply to this comment

    • annageig

      I’m so glad you can use them! Thanks so much for the pin. Great Star Wars game! My kids don’t know about Star Wars yet, but some day they’ll think it’s very cool 🙂

      Reply to this comment

  8. Rebekah K.

    These are wonderful! Please tell me you are going to do more for the other short vowels? I can’t wait to get this printed out to play with my daughter. Thanks for taking the time to make all these great printables 🙂

    Reply to this comment

    • annageig

      You’re so welcome, Rebekah! It makes me so happy that people can use them. You gave me the boost I needed so that I am starting to make printables for short o. I should have the short o read ‘n stick mats out next week, and piece by piece I’ll get other printables for that vowel.

      Reply to this comment

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  11. Natalya

    My 4 loves this game, and it’s been fantastic for helping her work on decoding (without knowing that she’s working!). Thanks so much for sharing it. Any chance you’ve added other short vowel families, or the long vowels? Or, if not, is there any way to get the blank cards (with your copyright on them, of course) so that I could fill in my own words? With the cards already designed, I’d think adding a few more lists of words would be quick and easy, and we’re ready to move on to new word families!

    Reply to this comment

    • Anna Geiger

      Hello, Natalya! I usually don’t give out my templates, but I have been meaning to make additional sets of these. If you tell me what you’d like to work on next, I can put it together and link to it in this post until I have a chance to write a complete post on it. Then you can get it easily. I don’t think it should take me too long. What vowel would you like next?

      Reply to this comment

  13. Ruthie

    I am an English teacher in South Korea and I ran into your site while searching for ideas on hoe to teach “Word Families” to a higher lever English Club I teach at the Public School I work at. WHAT a great game! THEY loved it. Korean children love to play cards and these were fantastic! I am even going to use them to play the game with some adults I teach in the system as well. Thank you so much for making it available! It made a terrible week end in a GREAT high note!

    Thank you form Korea!

    Reply to this comment

    • Anna Geiger

      Yay – I’m so glad to hear this was a hit with your students, Ruthie! And also very happy to hear that it helped turn around a terrible week. 🙂 I had my fair share of those as a teacher!

      Reply to this comment

  15. Carolyn

    Thank you for this game! I can’t wait to try it with my firsties! Do you have other UNO for the other vowels or just the a? I love your site, and have used many of your literacy games! Thanks so much for sharing!

    Reply to this comment

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