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PSPKK12313 Comments

Milk cap spelling mats for short u words

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Get out some milk cap letters for these bright short u spelling mats!

milk cap spelling mats short u

The pack has a set of words for six different word families:

  • UM: gum, yum, drum
  • UN: sun, bun, run
  • UG: hug, mug, bug, rug, jug, tug, plug
  • UT: nut, cut, hut
  • UCK: duck, puck, truck
  • UB: tub, club, sub, rub

milk cap letter spelling 1

Here’s a page from the download.  You can see that you’ll need to cut the sheets in half across the horizontal line.

milk cap letter spelling 2

When you print the pages front to back, this is what you’ll see when you turn the cards over.  That makes these great for independent work and/or classroom learning centers.

Since I was using them with my four-year-old, we did them together.

milk cap letters - spelling 1

Because my Four knows all his letters and sounds, we started right away with the harder side.  I told him what the picture was (which can be hard to know, sometimes!) and encouraged him to say the word slowly and pick out the letters.

As you can see from the picture, he missed the middle letter.  When he writes in his journal (something we’re doing every day as a family when the older kids get home from school), his spelling reflects this.

I’m excited when he can write the word “cut” as “ct” as a preschooler.  That’s actually fabulous!  But since this was a focused teaching time, I was able to help him streeeeetch out the word like a rubber band and fit the vowel in there too.

milk cap letters - spelling 2

You’ll notice that all the vowels are in red.  This is a subtle way to help kids start to distinguish between vowels and consonants.

milk cap letters - spelling 3

After he spelled the word on one side, he could turn it over to check his answer.

milk cap letters - spelling 4

It was always fun to see that he was correct!

milk cap letters - spelling 5

My Two saw the mats and letters and wanted a turn.  “Can I spell, too?”  I hadn’t considered having him use these, but he loved it. My purpose was different. Instead of having him stretch out words and write the sounds he hears, we focused on matching letters.

Doing this activity was helpful for him because he started to learn some lowercase letters (particularly those like their uppercase counterparts) and practiced distinguishing between them. I gave him all the caps he’d need for a particular mat, and he matched them.  (I wouldn’t recommend having a two-year-old search from all the letters in a pile unless he was up for it!  Definitely would have overwhelmed my little guy!)

short u spelling mat sample

Remember to print pages 2-25 front to back!

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 a strong phonics foundation!

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.

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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.

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

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Reader Interactions

13 Comments

  1. Amy Narayan

    October 31, 2019 at 3:43 am

    These are fun! Thank you. I wonder if you would consider adding the phonemes ch, th sh, wh, and other vowels such as ou, ow, au, aw, ow, ou, etc and even long vowel patterns for even more uses for the caps.

    Reply to this comment
  2. Andi

    April 23, 2018 at 10:19 pm

    I feel like I have died and gone to heaven! YOU are so creative and I love your blog which I have recently discovered! Thank you so much for your clear explainations and tips. Thank you for sharing what you have found successful and for all those wonderful freebie! I am “semi-retired” having taught for 26 years. I took 2 years off and am now a substitute teacher. When I keep uncovering all the layers of yumminess of your site it truly makes me wish I was back in my own classroom full time! (That way I could use a lot of the cute things you have made!)

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      April 28, 2018 at 4:57 pm

      This was such a kind comment and such a day brightener for me, Andi! I’m thrilled that you found my site!

      Reply to this comment
  3. Kara Coyner

    October 2, 2017 at 10:34 pm

    Are you going to make some mats for being able to do math problems with the milk tops? Also, will you be making sight words for the milk tops? Would love to be able to have my students make sentences using the milk tops. They are invested in milk top games as they helped collect the milk tops for the last 2 weeks! Thanks!!

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      October 5, 2017 at 12:34 pm

      I wish I could make time for this, Kara, but I’m pretty backed up now with a lot of other projects and plans. Thank you for the suggestions, though!

      Reply to this comment
  4. Maricor B. Manangcawal

    November 27, 2016 at 6:36 am

    Thank you so much! Helpful to my pupils.

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna Geiger

      November 28, 2016 at 11:21 am

      You’re very welcome, Maricor!

      Reply to this comment

Trackbacks

  1. Short vowel worksheets - The Measured Mom says:
    September 22, 2020 at 5:49 am

    […] milk cap spelling mats […]

    Reply to this comment
  2. Short a phonics books - The Measured Mom says:
    September 21, 2020 at 12:54 pm

    […] can practice reading short vowel words with printable word family houses, read ‘n stick mats, milk cap spelling mats, and even Uno and Crazy […]

    Reply to this comment
  3. Milk cap spelling mats for short o words - The Measured Mom says:
    September 21, 2020 at 8:08 am

    […] Short u […]

    Reply to this comment
  4. Milk cap spelling mats for short a words - The Measured Mom says:
    September 20, 2020 at 6:28 am

    […] Short u […]

    Reply to this comment
  5. Recycling and Reading / Lectura y Reciclaje – InfantMakerSpace says:
    April 12, 2017 at 11:33 am

    […] Infants school is a time to begin the reading process, but it doesn´t just have to (or shouldn´t) come from books! We recycled milk caps and glued some letters on them to make a reading game. I got these off The Measured Mom Web site: https://www.themeasuredmom.com/spell-short-u-words-milk-cap-letters-free-printables/ […]

    Reply to this comment
  6. FREE Spell Short U Words Game and Printables | Free Homeschool Deals © says:
    February 22, 2015 at 10:55 pm

    […] FREE Short U pack has a set of words for six different word […]

    Reply to this comment

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