• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Blog
  • Podcast
  • Course
    • Teaching Every Reader
  • Subscriber Freebies
  • About
  • Contact
  • Shop
  • Member Login

The Measured Mom

Education resources for parents and teachers

  • Alphabet
  • Reading
    • Structured literacy
    • Printable Books
    • Pre-Reading
    • Phonics
    • Sight Words
    • Comprehension
    • Fluency
    • Vocabulary
  • Writing
    • Grammar
    • Handwriting
    • Spelling
    • Writing in Pre-K
    • Writing in K-3
  • Math
    • Counting
    • Number Recognition
    • Addition & Subtraction
    • Colors, Shapes & Patterns
    • Visual Discrimination
    • Time, Money & Measurement
    • Place Value
    • Graphs
    • Multiplication & Division
    • Fractions
    • Problem Solving
  • Book Lists
    • Letter of the Week
    • Early Childhood Themes
    • Pre-Reading Skills
    • Math Concepts
    • Writing Mentor Texts
    • Versions of Familiar Tales
    • Holidays and Seasonal
    • History
    • Leveled Book Lists
  • Join Membership
Home
  • Shop
  • Blog
    • Alphabet
    • Reading
    • Writing
    • Math
    • Book Lists
  • Podcast
  • Courses
    • Teaching Every Reader
    • Teaching Every Writer
  • Subscriber Freebies
  • About
  • Membership
  • Contact

PSPKK12310 Comments

Milk cap spelling mats – short e words

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

Sharing is caring!

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

If you’re teaching your child to read or spell short e words, these printable milk cap spelling mats are perfect!

milk cap spelling mats for short e words

milk cap spelling mats for short e words 2

When you go through the cards you will find both easy and more challenging words within the word families.

The short e spelling mats contain these words:

bed, red, shed sled

net, wet, vet, jet

hen, pen, ten, men

vest, nest, test, best

well, bell, shell, smell

tent, cent, bent, dent

peck, deck, neck, check

Since my little guy is just starting out with sounding out words, we kept it simple.  I pulled out only the 3-letter spelling mats.  After your child has mastered those, the next step would be to add the words with a beginning blend or digraph, like shed and sled.  Even more challenging words have  a more complex ending, like peck or well.  And the most challenging of all have a beginning blend or digraph plus a longer ending: shell, smell, and check.

milk cap spelling mats for short e words 3

It might be a good idea to start with the sides with the printed letters first, no matter your child’s ability. That way he knows what words he’s going to spell.  While some are pretty obvious (“pen”), others are a little tricky (“dent”).

Here’s how it sounded at our house:

“Okay, let’s get a new card. What’s this a picture of?”
        “Net.”
“Right!  What letter do we need first?”
        “N…. where’s the n?  Here it is.  Now a red letter.  E.”
“What sound does the e spell?”
         “Eh.  And now I need a t.”

milk cap spelling mats for short e words 4

After we had done the easy side of a few mats, I decided to see if my Four could spell without seeing the letters.  I turned the cards to the blank side and helped him stretch out each word.  After he was done, he slid the letters off and flipped the card over to check his answer (see the above picture).

Here’s what it sounded like when we did the harder side:

“What’s this picture?”
           “Red.”
“Can you stretch out the word like a rubber band?”
           “I don’t know how to do that.”
“Say it like this.  Rrreeeeeeed.”
           “Rrrreeeeeed.”
“That’s perfect! What’s the first letter?”
            “R.”
“Now what do you hear in the middle?”
           “It’s a red letter.  It’s E.”
“Can you stretch out the word again to figure out the last letter?”
            “Reeeeed.  I don’t know.”
“Reeeeed.  /d/  What letter spells /d/?”
             “D!”
“You got it!”

I was surprised and pleased by how well he did with this.  The last time we tried it (a month or two ago), he would not attempt the harder side.

*Note, when printing these mats, be sure to print pages 2-29 back to back (page 1 is my Terms of Use).  That way your child can flip each mat over to check his work.

Get all of our milk cap spelling mats!

  • Short a
  • Short e
  • Short i
  • Short o
  • Short u

Get your free milk cap spelling mats!

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD

Build strong phonics skills with our word slider cards!

Word Slider Cards

$10.00

Get our expanded, updated set of over 300 short vowel word slider cards! Each card has updated clip art and comes in both color and black and white.

Buy Now

Free Spelling Games

Get this fun variety of sample spelling games from the membership site! The download includes resources for spelling CVCE words, long vowel teams, and multi-syllable words.

Sharing is caring!

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Filed Under: Spelling, CVC Words, Reading Tagged With: word families, milk cap letters, first grade, kindergarten, short e

You May Also Enjoy These Posts:

Four in a row games for “oo” words Free money emergent reader (3 versions!) Phonics books for various vowel teams
Roll & write for short vowel words
Beginning sound blackout (8 boards!)

Reader Interactions

10 Comments

  1. Jane

    July 11, 2015 at 11:51 am

    Hi I love your website and admire the work you do! I saw that you have bottle cap version for short a words. May I ask if you have bottle cap versions for the other words too? Thanks a bunch!

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna Geiger

      July 12, 2015 at 8:48 pm

      Hello, Jane!

      I started out doing the bottle cap version with the short a mats, but I don’t plan to do that for the other short vowel words. These are very time consuming to make, and as I don’t get many requests to redo them, it’s something I can’t choose to make time for. I’m sorry – I know it doesn’t look as neat using bottle caps on the milk cap circles!

      Reply to this comment
  2. Chelley

    November 13, 2014 at 6:27 pm

    I enjoy reading your posts and the materials you’ve been sharing. I really like the spelling mats. I was wondering though if you have bottle cap cards for
    short e-u word family because I have a lots of bottle caps as opposed to milk caps. Hoping to hear from you.THanks Anna =)

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna Geiger

      November 25, 2014 at 6:30 am

      Hello, Chelley! First of all, so sorry to take so long to get back with you. You asked about bottle cap mats versus milk cap mats. I have not created those, but I can… i just need a little time. I have a clip art subscription that is running out in January. They’ve changed their terms of use so that I can no longer use them for printables after January. So I’m working like a crazy woman making as many new printables as I can before then. But I will put this project on my list for later Jan/early Feb. Thanks!

      Reply to this comment
  3. Debbie

    November 13, 2014 at 9:27 am

    Thank you so very much for the great information you have provided for us! I am looking for mats for the it family. Please post.

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna Geiger

      November 13, 2014 at 9:29 am

      I haven’t created those yet, Debbie, but keep an eye out in the next two weeks!

      Reply to this comment
  4. Lauren

    August 12, 2014 at 5:40 pm

    So great! Thanks for sharing!

    Reply to this comment

Trackbacks

  1. Milk cap spelling mats for short u words - The Measured Mom says:
    September 21, 2020 at 12:10 pm

    […] cap spelling mats for each of the short vowels.  So far I’ve shared sets for short a, short e, and short […]

    Reply to this comment
  2. Short i milk cap spelling mats - The Measured Mom says:
    September 19, 2020 at 12:14 pm

    […] Short e […]

    Reply to this comment
  3. Milk cap spelling mats for short o words - The Measured Mom says:
    September 18, 2020 at 11:14 pm

    […] Short e […]

    Reply to this comment

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Grade Level Key

  • PS Preschool (ages 2-3 years)
  • PK Pre-K (ages 4-5 years)
  • K Kindergarten
  • 1 1st grade
  • 2 2nd grade
  • 3 3rd grade

Hello, I’m Anna!

Welcome to The Measured Mom. I’m so glad you’re here!

Meet Our Team

Free Spelling Games

Get this fun variety of sample spelling games from the membership site! The download includes resources for spelling CVCE words, long vowel teams, and multi-syllable words.

Shop these popular reading resources!

Editable Reading Games for Every Season – MEGA PACK!

$24.00

Phonics Books & Games – Complete Set

$49.00

Reading response sheets & Early chapter book lists

$18.00

Shop All Resources

Members get more!

The Measured Mom Plus is the perfect online membership for Pre-K to third grade educators.

Learn More

Love Freebies?

Subscribing to our email newsletter is completely free. And when you do, you'll get access to our library of subscriber freebies! Sign up below to get access to a wonderful variety of math and literacy resources.

Join our online course and get the tools you need to teach every learner in K-2!

Confidently teach every reader in your classroom. Still have time to live your life.

Learn More

Listen and subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and Stitcher

Check out these recent podcast episodes:

  • What is set for variability? A conversation with Dr. Marnie Ginsberg
  • How to help students improve language comprehension – a conversation with Dr. Karen Dudek-Brannan
  • What we got wrong (and right) with balanced literacy – a conversation with Dr. Nathaniel Swain
More Episodes

Check out these FREE email courses...

Get strategies and tools to teach a particular topic with a free 5-day email series! Just click an image to sign up. We recommend signing up for just one at a time.

For Pre-K Educators

How to teach phonological & phonemic awareness

How to teach phonological & phonemic awareness

Learn how to develop this important pre-reading skill with a free 5-day email series!

How to teach preschool math

How to teach preschool math

Learn exactly what to teach your preschoolers in this free 5-day series!

For Kinder & 1st Grade Educators

How to teach kids to sound out words

How to teach kids to sound out words

Learn my top strategies for teaching kids to "sound it out"

How to teach sight words

How to teach sight words

Get strategies and tools for teaching sight words to young learners!

Tips for teaching phonics

Tips for teaching phonics

Sign up for our free 5-day email series to learn what phonics skills to teach and how to structure your phonics lessons!

For 2nd & 3rd Grade Educators

How to build reading fluency

How to build reading fluency

Learn smart strategies for helping your learners become fluent readers with this free 5-day series!

How to build reading comprehension

How to build reading comprehension

Discover the essential reading comprehension strategies for 2nd & 3rd grade and how to teach them!

“Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” –Matthew 6:33

Copyright © 2023 The Measured Mom •  All rights reserved  •  Privacy & Disclosure Statement  •  Site Design by Emily White Designs