I’m building up my collection of hands-on word family fun. Teaching beginning reading with word families is so important (see why here). To add to our other short a printables, I created this free word family game: Uno!
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.
Free Word Family Game
How to play:
- Deal 5 cards to each player.
- Turn over the top card from the deck.
- 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.
- 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.
- Players can play “Wild” cards at any time. When doing so, they should name the new word family that players must match.
- When a player has one card left, he says “Uno.”
- 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
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.
Do you have our word family mats yet?
We highly recommend this reading curriculum for learning short vowel words – it’s fantastic!
© 2013 – 2016, Anna G. All rights reserved.
Ally says
Fantastic idea. My 3 and 2 are too young for the game, but they LOVE flashcards (for some reason…I have no idea what the appeal is) so I’ll be printing up a set regardless. Thanks.
annageig says
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!
heidi says
Hey, these are great. Thanks for sharing them. I’m sure they will come in handy.
annageig says
You’re welcome, Heidi!
Amy says
Thanks for sharing! I love using card games to reinforce skills. Word families are such a great teaching tool as well!
Amy
Eclectic Educating
annageig says
You’re welcome, Amy! Thanks so much for stopping by!
Cathy says
Found you through …… Love your blog!
I would love for you to share and link up at my TGIF Link Party.
http://apeekintomyparadise.blogspot.com/2013/05/tgif-link-party-2.html
The party opens Thursday night and closes on Wednesday night at midnight.
Please, invite your friends to party too! The more the merrier!
Hugs, Cathy
annageig says
Thanks, Cathy! I hope to link up this week.
Enchanted Schoolroom says
I love the UNO, and the other games as well!! They are perfect for my 5 year old. Pinning them!
I made a Star wars Board Game recently that your kids might enjoy 🙂
http://enchantedschoolroom.blogspot.com/p/free-downloads.html
annageig says
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 🙂
Carrie says
Oh, how fun and creative!! I love Uno and haven’t tried it with my 4-year-old yet. Maybe I’ll pull it out. Thank you for sharing at Sharing Saturday!
annageig says
You’re welcome – thanks for checking it out!
claudia says
I love this idea!!! Hope you can share it with us on Pin It Mondays
Claudia @ http://www.prettylittledahlia.com
PS- new follower, found you at crafty moms share 🙂
annageig says
So glad you’re here – and following 🙂 Hope you can find more things to use, Claudia!
Rebekah K. says
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 🙂
annageig says
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.
Judy says
Hi Anna,
We are featuring your post today at Pursuit of Functional Home. Please watch out for it 🙂
Judy
Pursuit of Functional Home.
annageig says
Thanks so much!
search engine says
I’m really loving the theme/design of your web site. Do you ever run into any web browser compatibility issues?
A small number of my blog readers have complained about my blog not
operating correctly in Explorer but looks great in Firefox.
Do you have any advice to help fix this issue?
Natalya says
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!
Anna Geiger says
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?
Natalya says
Wow– thanks so much, Anna. My daughter is reading pretty much all of the short vowels, so any or all of them would be great for us. Do you already have lists of short vowel words, or would you like me to brainstorm some and send them to you? I really didn’t want to put you to any extra trouble!
Also, have you made or linked to other early reading *games* (as opposed to activities)? I love the word family houses and velcro-dot folders, but I think for my daughter more game-like games would also be a huge hit.
Anna Geiger says
Oh, yes, I have lists which are easy to get to. So no problem -I’ll pick a vowel or two and try to get that done in the next week. I’ll write another comment on here so you know when they’re up. I will have to brainstorm more game like activities. No other ones yet!
Natalya says
Thanks so much– you’re great! I love this blog.
Anna Geiger says
Hi Natalya,
Check out my short e word family Crazy 8’s…https://www.themeasuredmom.com/short-e-word-family-activity-crazy-8s/
karen byassee says
The uno game cannot be downloaded on google chrome for some reason.
Anna Geiger says
Hi Karen – I think you should be able to download it now!
Ruthie says
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!
Anna Geiger says
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!
Lisa says
I love this activity that I use with my second grade. Your materials are so user friendly. Thanks for making my job so much easier and fun for the kids!
Anna Geiger says
I like to hear “user friendly,” Lisa! So glad this activity is working for your learners!
Carolyn says
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!
Anna G says
I don’t, Carolyn – maybe one day. I’ll put it on my “maybe” long term to do list. ):)
Jamie says
Do you have this game for other word families with different vowels?
Anna G says
No, but if you check my free printables page you will find a LOT of resources for teaching all the short vowels through games.