Fun fluency Games
If you are looking for fun fluency games to play in your elementary classroom, here’s a WINNER! This will quickly become the “MOST FAVORITE” 😉 center game! It’s quick, easy, and a lot of FUN! The best part is that every time students play, it’s a different game depending on the cards (words)!
- The game has 8 words on each card, 55 cards, and 57 different words. The object of the game is to say the one word on your card that matches the middle card before your opponents say their matching word.
- Every card has a match – it’s crazy, but it works.
- You can also split the deck and have two groups playing. It doesn’t matter how many cards you use or if a card gets lost.
- It takes a bit of set up (printing, laminating, and cutting) but I promise… you won’t be disappointed that you spent a bit of time in prep. Your students will LOVE it!
How to play:
- Put all of the cards in a pile
- Each student who is playing will take one card and put it in front of them (can play up to 8 – but we typically only do up to 4)
- One person says GO
- Each student will look at the words on their card and try to find the ONE word on their card that is also on the middle card
- Whoever says their matching word first gets to take the middle card and their card and put it to the side of them (students have to prove their match by saying the word and then pointing to BOTH of them – on their card and the center card)
- ONLY that student takes another card from the middle and then says GO
- Each student (again) will look at the words on their card and try to find the ONE word on their card that is also on the middle card
- Game continues until they run out of time or there are no more cards in the middle
- Whoever has the most cards next to them, wins!
EXAMPLE OF FUN FLUENCY GAMES:
If you look at the picture, you can see that each student has a different matching word.
- Student 1 would have to say peg to match the center card
- Student 2 would have to say hat to match the center card
- The third student would have to say bag to match the center card
Building Reading fluency Activities
To introduce these games to your students, you need to first make sure that they have the basic sound-letter relations. In first grade, we spend about 2 1/2 weeks at the beginning of school reviewing all of our letter sounds using our Comprehensive Daily Sound-Letter Recognition Activities. (Read about that here!)
Once we’ve gone through all of our letter-sounds, then I introduce the first game (short a set). This gives students tons of opportunities to decode CVC words in isolation. Once students understand the game, I add all of the CVC games to our centers.
As the year goes on, I’ll add blends, word families, long vowels, etc. giving students tons of practice. Now… keep in mind that I’m also giving students tons of practice with stories that have a high proportion of decodable words.
WORD GAMES FOR FREE
Would you like to try one of my games to see how it works and if these would work for your kiddos? Sign up for my newsletter to grab your freebie. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed!
ELEMENTARY GAMES FOR THE CLASSROOM
If you try and love, you might want to check out my forever growing bundle! Anytime I add a game to my store, I also add it to my endless growing bundle.
Wanting a set that I don’t have? If there’s a word family or set of words that I don’t have yet, you can email me with the specifics. As long as I can get 57 words from that category, I can typically make the set for you. EEEKKK!!!
REASONS TO TRY:
- Super engaging
- Fun and quick to play
- Actually helps with word recognition
- Students don’t even know it’s a learning game
hear what others have to say:
I can scream it from the roof top that this game works… but hear what others have to say. 🙂
I love love love these. Kids really enjoy these and I change them out based on units.
give-a-way, freebies, and half-off bundles
I’m in a fun collaborative give-a-way where someone will win TWENTY new books to add to a classroom library or teacher book collection. I’m not sure about you… but I LOVE BOOKS! You will also be able to check out our 20 blog posts for FREEBIES as well as bundles that could possibly be heavily discounted!
For my free book donation, I decided on The Night Before First Grade because this is one I read every year. Our students know us because we are all in the same hall, and/or because we’ve taught siblings, neighbors, etc. So they are really wanting certain teachers and to have their friends in class with them. We all know that it doesn’t always happen that way – and this book is a good way to show students that it’s OK if we didn’t get the teacher we wanted or if our BFF isn’t in class with us. It’s cute and an easy read – love it!
Click on the Inlinkz link party below to start the journey!
Good luck in the raffle, and I hope you enjoy the freebies in our PDF. I’d love to hear from you after you have a chance to introduce the game to your students! 🙂
Until Next Time!
Shanon Juneau
We Are Better Together
