Beginning Sound Sorting Mat

In Lesson 11, we are working on Beginning Sounds.  I have taken the supplied worksheets, and I get my students to create a word sorting mat. 

Materials Needed:

17" by 22" sheet of construction paper one for each student

copy of the printables for lesson 11 for each student

Metre Stick (or Yard Stick for the Americans)

Black Marker

Scissors 

Glue

How to Prepare the Materials:

I take the sheet of construction and paper and fold it in half (hot dog fold).  I, then, fold the paper into thirds.  I take my metre stick and draw the dividing lines in with a black marker.

The Student Construction:

I give each student a copy of the letters and ask them to cut them out, and glue each set of letters into a box.  I provide them with my sample so they can see what they need to do (see the picture below).  For me, it does not matter what letter goes in which box - my only rule is that the letters need to be oriented correctly.

I have been having the students work on this project on the first day of a new unit.  This allows me time to work individually with each student on the monthly pre-tests.  

One of the ways, I conduct an assessment for my students is that I give them the stack of pictures for the month (sometimes the students cut them out, sometimes I do it) and I see how many pictures each student is able to sort by themselves.  See an example in this picture:

Another extension activity that we did this month was to take the printables from  Lesson 12 and we created a sorting activity.  I used Word to create the titles.  See below for an example of what we did: