Free Printable Winter Theme Letter Sounds Mats
Bring snowy fun to your room with these free winter Letter Sounds Mats to practice beginning, middle, & ending sounds with your kindergarten students.
Winter Letter Sounds Mats
As young learners continue to work on their letter recognition and letter sounds skills, they must begin manipulating the sounds in words. One of the first ways students do this is by isolating the beginning, middle, and ending sounds in words. This phonemic awareness skill is the stepping stone to blending sounds and decoding CVC words.
This winter activity is tons of fun, reinforces letter and sound recognition, and teaches letter-sound isolation in a fun, winter-themed way!
With these snowman letter sound matching mats, students have the opportunity to practice isolating the beginning, middle, and ending sounds in words. There are five snowman mats, each focusing on one type of sound.
Students will use their phonemic awareness, phonics, and critical thinking skills to match the letter to the pictures found on the mat. These would be great for literacy centers!
So Easy to Prep!
All you need to do is print the mats and gather some letter manipulatives. You could use magnetic letters, mini erasers shaped like letters, letter beads, or play dough. If you use play dough, I would have the students make the letters with the playdough and lay them on the mat.
I would recommend sliding the mats into wipe and write pockets or laminating the sheets for durability. Then, your students could use dry erase markers to write the letters on the mats.
There are five mats included in the resource; 3 that focus on beginning sounds, one focuses on middle sounds and another on ending sounds. The mats are in color but could easily be printed in black and white to save ink.
Setting Up the Winter Letter Sounds Mats
Supplies Needed:
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- Snowman Letter Sounds Mats (button to access the resource at the bottom of this post)
- Write and wipe pockets (optional)
- letter manipulatives
Instructions:
- Print the mats.
- Slide the mats into write and wipe pockets OR laminate them.
- Gather other manipulatives.
- Store the entire activity in a large bag or storage container.
How to Use the Letter Mats
Each student will pick a mat and a set of letter manipulatives. Have the child spread out the letters so they can see all of them. Then they will look at the first picture on the mat. The student will identify the image and then isolate either the beginning, middle, or ending sound. Then, they will place the corresponding letter on the picture. They continue until all the pictures have a letter.
Ideas for Using the Letter Sounds Mats
These mats are perfect for literacy activities, practicing letters of the alphabet, and even home learning tools.
These snowman letter mats could be used as a tic-tac-toe game or bingo board. Students could play in partners with different colored letter manipulatives and work to get 3 in a row for tic-tac-toe.
To play bingo, students could all have different mats. As the teacher calls out sounds, students will see if they have the corresponding picture, working on getting a bingo.
More Differentitation Ideas!
There are a variety of ways that these winter matching mats can be differentiated to meet the needs of your students. Since there are five different mats, you can start by having your students complete only one mat. As their skills progress, they can work their way up to completing two mats and then 3, 4, or 5 mats!
Another way to use this free printable is to have the students draw a letter manipulative and find the picture from the mats that begins with that sound. Simply switching up the way students match the letters and sounds works their brains differently. They will use their phonics and problem-solving skills as they search from the pictures to find the match.
Students could use this learning activity with partners as well. They could take turns practicing letters and matching pictures or work together to complete the mat. This helps them work cooperatively and allows them to encourage and coach each other along the way.
As you can see, this free resource will be great to have in your classroom this winter! Students can be working on beginning, middle, or ending sounds all with one resource, which saves you prep time!
Click the button below to get the Winter Letter Sounds Mats and incorporate them into your lesson plans!
Here are some more snowman activities for you!
Snow Globe Find and Cover the Letters Mats
Snow Globe Roll and Cover the Number Mats