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PSPKK123 May 7, 2013  •  41 Comments

Free Word Family Game: Uno (short a)

This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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!

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

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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Filed Under: Reading, CVC Words Tagged With: first grade, kindergarten, short a, word families

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Reader Interactions

41 Comments

  1. Ally

    May 7, 2013 at 5:26 am

    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.

    Reply to this comment
    • annageig

      May 7, 2013 at 6:03 am

      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
  2. heidi

    May 7, 2013 at 1:56 pm

    Hey, these are great. Thanks for sharing them. I’m sure they will come in handy.

    Reply to this comment
    • annageig

      May 8, 2013 at 6:28 am

      You’re welcome, Heidi!

      Reply to this comment
  3. Amy

    May 12, 2013 at 7:49 am

    Thanks for sharing! I love using card games to reinforce skills. Word families are such a great teaching tool as well!

    Amy
    Eclectic Educating

    Reply to this comment
    • annageig

      May 16, 2013 at 7:32 pm

      You’re welcome, Amy! Thanks so much for stopping by!

      Reply to this comment
  4. Cathy

    May 12, 2013 at 10:09 pm

    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

    Reply to this comment
    • annageig

      May 16, 2013 at 7:33 pm

      Thanks, Cathy! I hope to link up this week.

      Reply to this comment
  5. Enchanted Schoolroom

    May 15, 2013 at 12:39 pm

    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

    Reply to this comment
    • annageig

      May 16, 2013 at 7:33 pm

      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
  6. Carrie

    May 17, 2013 at 4:22 pm

    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!

    Reply to this comment
    • annageig

      May 25, 2013 at 3:01 pm

      You’re welcome – thanks for checking it out!

      Reply to this comment
  7. claudia

    May 20, 2013 at 1:50 am

    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 🙂

    Reply to this comment
    • annageig

      May 25, 2013 at 3:02 pm

      So glad you’re here – and following 🙂 Hope you can find more things to use, Claudia!

      Reply to this comment
  8. Rebekah K.

    May 27, 2013 at 11:38 pm

    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

      May 29, 2013 at 8:23 pm

      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
  9. Judy

    May 31, 2013 at 12:49 am

    Hi Anna,

    We are featuring your post today at Pursuit of Functional Home. Please watch out for it 🙂

    Judy
    Pursuit of Functional Home.

    Reply to this comment
    • annageig

      May 31, 2013 at 7:54 am

      Thanks so much!

      Reply to this comment
  10. search engine

    October 25, 2013 at 6:46 pm

    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
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    Do you have any advice to help fix this issue?

    Reply to this comment
  11. Natalya

    June 6, 2014 at 4:06 pm

    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

      June 6, 2014 at 8:50 pm

      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
      • Natalya

        June 7, 2014 at 2:24 pm

        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.

        Reply to this comment
        • Anna Geiger

          June 7, 2014 at 2:47 pm

          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!

          Reply to this comment
          • Natalya

            June 7, 2014 at 3:09 pm

            Thanks so much– you’re great! I love this blog.

            Reply to this comment
          • Anna Geiger

            June 13, 2014 at 6:32 am

            Hi Natalya,
            Check out my short e word family Crazy 8’s…https://www.themeasuredmom.com/short-e-word-family-activity-crazy-8s/

            Reply to this comment
  12. karen byassee

    September 23, 2014 at 5:28 pm

    The uno game cannot be downloaded on google chrome for some reason.

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna Geiger

      September 23, 2014 at 7:38 pm

      Hi Karen – I think you should be able to download it now!

      Reply to this comment
  13. Ruthie

    November 13, 2015 at 1:43 am

    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

      November 13, 2015 at 8:52 pm

      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
  14. Lisa

    May 30, 2017 at 2:31 pm

    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!

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna Geiger

      June 5, 2017 at 9:50 pm

      I like to hear “user friendly,” Lisa! So glad this activity is working for your learners!

      Reply to this comment
  15. Carolyn

    October 12, 2017 at 8:35 pm

    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
    • Anna G

      October 12, 2017 at 8:41 pm

      I don’t, Carolyn – maybe one day. I’ll put it on my “maybe” long term to do list. ):)

      Reply to this comment
  16. Jamie

    November 9, 2017 at 6:56 pm

    Do you have this game for other word families with different vowels?

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      November 9, 2017 at 7:38 pm

      No, but if you check my free printables page you will find a LOT of resources for teaching all the short vowels through games.

      Reply to this comment
  17. Jéssica

    October 24, 2019 at 11:24 am

    I live in Brazil and was just looking for an English UNO game. Thank you so much

    Reply to this comment

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