Phoneme Flowers Game

by Jessica Elliott-Lawrence on 17 Sep 2014

With Spring, comes the end of Term 3. The Foundation year are most likely to be working their way through Unit 5 of the Basic Code. Keep your students enthused and raring to go with this fun and simple outdoor game!

You will need:

Paddle pop sticks
Four flower pots
Scissors
Glue
Blue tack

Set up:

Download, print and photocopy the Phoneme Flowers Template
Cut out flowers individually and laminate
Glue each picture flower to the top of a paddle pop stick

N.B. Coloured paper and paddle pop sticks add a nice dash of colour.

Use a whiteboard marker to write one of the four digraphs: ‘sh’, ‘ch’, ‘th’, ‘wh’ on the blank flowers and blue tack to a flower pot
Step outside into the sunshine and mark out a large square in the playground (about the size of your classroom)
Place a flower pot at each corner of the square

How to play:

Have children sit in small groups in the centre of the square, giving each group a set of picture flowers.
Children must work together to place the correct picture flowers in their corresponding digraph pots (one flower at a time).
The first group to place all of their flowers in the correct flower pots and make it back to the centre of the square wins.

N.B. However, if even a single flower is incorrectly placed, every group must go and retrieve their flowers and start again.

To make the game easier (to use early next year), only photocopy blank flowers, writing single phonemes on each flower e.g. ‘s’. Have the children match the exact phoneme to the correct flower pot.