Making phonics fun

A fun and engaging way to involve children in learning sounds is through an interactive game called "Sound Scavenger Hunt." Today, we had a blast with it, and it really got the children’s brains working in creative ways! The idea is simple: pick a sound, whether it's a specific letter (like "s" or "ch") or a sound combination (like "sh" or "ing"), and challenge the children to come up with as many words as they can that contain that sound.

For example, we started with the sound "ch" and the kids came up with a list of words like chair, cheese, chicken, and chocolate. The fun part was seeing how excited they were to find new words and how they began making connections between them. As the game progressed, we made an interesting observation: when the sound appeared at the end of the word, the words often sounded quite similar, like in beach and teach. This helped the children see how sounds can repeat and form patterns, which is a great way to strengthen their phonemic awareness.

The children loved the challenge of coming up with new words and hearing the sounds in different contexts. Plus, it gave them a sense of accomplishment when they found a word that fit the sound. The more they played, the more they started to notice patterns on their own, making learning feel like a natural and enjoyable discovery process.