Playing simple reading and phonics-focused games is a great way to get even a reluctant child to learn the basics of reading. This Christmas-themed reading game was a big hit with my preschooler!
Sticky Ornament Reading Game
Decorating for Christmas early this year sort of backfired on us.
I mean, we didn’t decorate THAT early… just the weekend before Thanksgiving.
But it confused our four-year-old so much.
Once Thanksgiving was over, she kept asking, “Is today Christmas? Christmas Eve? Thanksgiving again???”
RELATED POST: STICKY CHRISTMAS TREE
I also made the mistake of trying to explain what an advent calendar is and how to use it.
The mistake was explaining this on November 17 when we still had 12 more days before we could start using the calendar.
Add to that the constant barrage of holiday-related questions:
“Can we make a gingerbread house? Can we decorate cookies? Where’s Santa? What is Daddy doing to the Christmas lights on the tree? Can we have hot chocolate? When is it going to snow?”
And on… and on…
Today is the last day of November, so I just had to hold off on the big Christmas activities for just one more day.
To do that, I created a Christmas-themed reading game for Elena and I to play.
Teaching Reading through Games
I’ve been struggling to teach Elena (age 4) to read.
I love, love, love reading, and I also learned to read at a very young age. I’ve been wanting to share that with her, which makes it hard not to push her beyond her capabilities and level of interest.
This game was the most fun we’ve had during our learning-to-read times, and I feel like I made a breakthrough with her understanding of how letters and sounds come together to make words.
I had previously decided to teach Elena to read using word families. Word families are groups of words that have a similar pattern.
In our case, I chose to start with -at (cat, bat, sat, mat, hat, rat, etc.).
Disclosure: We use sponsored, or affiliate, links, which means that we could earn a small commission that helps fund our blog (at no extra cost to you!). All opinions are our own and we only recommend products we love. Thank you for your support and happy shopping!
The BOB Books
I also had been wanting to go through the BOB books (Beginning Readers Set) with Elena to teach her reading.
Let me first say that the books are great. They are clean and simple and perfect for a beginning reader.
But for some reason Elena really, really dislikes the books.
I have no idea why she doesn’t like them. She may be frustrated that she cannot read them on her own, or maybe she thinks they are just really boring. I don’t know!
But anyway, the first book uses the words Mat, Sam, and sat. Two of those words are in the -at word family that we are learning, so it coordinated nicely with what I was teaching.
How to Set Up the Sticky Ornament Reading Game
Here’s how I made this game.
The supplies I used were:
- construction paper
- foam sheets
- Con-Tact paper
- scissors
- black marker
- tape
I also used this bell during our game.
First, I cut a tree shape out of green construction paper.
Then, I cut out several ornaments using different colors of foam sheets.
Next, I taped the tree to the wall and taped a sheet of Con-Tact paper over it, sticky-side up.
Last, I wrote at on one of the foam ornaments, and the following letters on the remaining ornaments:
- b
- c
- m
- r
- s
Here is a graphic of other CVC word families you could use instead of -at.
Feel free to save, print, or pin the image.
Three Ways to Play The Sticky Ornament Reading Game
Once the game was set up, I placed all the foam ornaments on a little table next to the Con-Tact paper tree, and added a bell next to it.
I came up with three different ways to play this game, which I’ll explain below.
But first, before we actually played the sticky ornament game, we went over all the letter sounds together, including –at.
First Method
For the first method, I placed the -at ornament on the tree and explained that we were going to decorate the tree with the letter ornaments.
I asked her to listen to the sound at the beginning of a word I would say and put the matching ornament letter on the tree to decorate it.
Then when she had placed the ornament on the tree, I had her ring the bell to show she was done. She absolutely loved that part.
We cycled through all the letters twice before she was ready to try something different.
Second Method
Another way we played this Christmas reading game was by building words and then reading them.
I asked Elena to build a word with the ornaments, and then ring the bell when she was done.
Then, I would read the word she made.
Sometimes, I would read it incorrectly, using one of the other letter sounds we learned.
She caught me every time!
“No, Mommy, that’s this letter,” she would say as she pointed to the correct letter sound on the table.
Then she would read the word she built correctly and laugh at me and my poor reading skills.
Good times.
Third Method
Lastly, this one was a little spontaneous, but it worked in the moment!
We have a Frozen II memory match game that has the characters on little cards.
I stuck the first one I could find (Olaf! My favorite!) on the tree, and we took turns building silly phrases using Olaf as the first word.
In this picture, Elena made the silly phrase Olaf mat.
We went through all the -at words: Olaf bat, Olaf hat, Olaf sat, Olaf rat…
My favorite, though, was Olaf cat.
Can you imagine Olaf as a cat? Cracks me up.
Reading BOB Books at the End of the Game
I pulled out our old BOB book once the sticky ornament game was over, and had Elena read it while I pointed to each word.
She must’ve been in a good mood because she read the whole book aloud, and even chuckled at “Mat sat on Sam.”
Your Turn To Try tHis Christmas reading Game
All in all, I’d say this reading lesson/game was a complete success.
I hope you’ll give it a try, too!
I’d be interested to hear if anyone has experience with the BOB books or any other beginner reader program. Drop me a comment below!
Looking for an organized guide of fun, easy activities to do with your toddler that also encourages their growth and development?
I’ve created a 3-month activity planner just for busy parents like you! The plan includes 65 detailed, simple, and stress-free activities including: arts and crafts, sensory play, motor skills, and STEM–all using easy-to-find supplies.
Let me help make planning activities for your toddler easy, so you can skip the stress and get straight to the fun!
