Gobbling up some letter recognition!

Transitioning from first grade to Kindergarten has been quite the learning experience for me.  On one hand, it's an absolute blast:  I know exactly where my students need to be at the end of the year and I've found it's easier for me to differentiate because of this.  On the other hand, I find myself spending hours thumbing through other teacher blogs and TPT for new activities, lesson ideas, and small group learning games since most of my current stock is geared for first grade (seriously, what did teachers do before blogs and TPT?!).  

Recently, as I was trying to find a Thanksgiving-themed activity for small groups, I decided to tweak one of my favorite products I created a few years.  The original game practiced sight word recognition, but I changed it to focus on letter and sound recognition for my younger little ones.  I'm loving Kindergarten and all the new and exciting things I get to teach, but I still want to share some of my favorite past activities with my new students.  My kiddos have loved this game so much that even my reluctant readers are eager to come to small group!  For some groups I only use one set and focus on letter recognition, but in other groups I have the students identify the letter and the letter sound.

 I wish I had a better picture of my cards (I guess I was just too into the game!) but I've found a great way to jazz up the appeal of turned-over cards and to prevent curious eyes from trying to see through the back is to use Do-A-Dot Markers on the backs before I cut and laminate.  Easy and quick and sure beats a boring white card!  (I also bent the rules a bit and scatter the cards instead of keeping them in a stack.  Little arms can't always reach to the stack easily!)

I am so thankful for my new grade level and new blog that I want to share this activity with you!  Get your free set here! 

Shameless plea:  If you download this, could you please consider following my blog and/or store?  I'm seriously bursting with excitement in Kindergarten and would love to connect with more teachers like me!

If you're interested in working with sight words, the original Gobble, Gobble game is still in my store as well!

-Liz