Short A Activities and Resources including freebies. Short A is usually the first phonics sound you teach in kindergarten and first grade so I figured itd be a great sound to show you teaching ideas and resources forI constantly get asked, What do you have for insert phonics sound here in emails and questions on my Tp. T store so I thought itd be fun to SHOW you Not to worry if youre already done with short a all of these ideas and activities you could do with other phonics sounds and most of the resources I share I also have for the other phonics sounds as well This is a long post but its filled with pictures and I promise if you read through it, youll find great ideas and some awesome FREE stuff along the way too So the first thing I want to talk about are these pocket chart cards. I LOVE them because they can be used for so many different thingsDogPlay Web Site Links to Visiting Pet, AAT and AAA Volunteer Groups Groups and Organizations Offering Visiting Pet, AAT, AAA and similar programs. Specialising in aged care activities and resources for Nursing Homes, Hostels and Adult Day Care Centres. Looking for online definition of Mentally challenged in the Medical Dictionary Mentally challenged explanation free. What is Mentally challenged Meaning of Mentally. Fun Activities For The Mentally Challenged People LearningThere are 3. My favorite thing is to use them as a pocket chart center. Put them in a pocket chart and have students build the words with the letter cards that are also included in the pack. Students just grab a word card and build it with the letter cards. The vowels come in red like this or in black. If you want to make the center a little more challenging, you can easily just snip the words off the bottom to make them picture only cards for students to figure out how to spell. For that activity, Id put only the letters they need in the center so its self checkingFun Activities For The Mentally Challenged People CryingCan we just talk about my pocket chart for a second though Im sort of obsessed with my monster pocket chart center. I couldnt get a good picture of it the lighting made it look faded green for the picture but its bright neon lime in person with a glittery green mouth, big white teeth, and giant googly eyes I promise its actually cute in person. I wish I could get a better picture of the area Basically. Fun Activities For The Mentally Challenged People Working' title='Fun Activities For The Mentally Challenged People Working' />I found this fun furry monster rug thats teal with lime and hot pink furry strands that stick out. Then I also fell in love with this little stuffed monster guy whos mouth is actually a front pocket so its perfect for keeping the teaching pointer in but I wanted to show you that too. I wrapped a finger pointer in a green boa to make a monster arm for pointing to the pocket chart withThen I found these cute little monster buckets for only a dollar each that I put the pocket chart center materials in Anyways Back to the pocket chart center cards I was talking about. There are a ton of them and you can do SO MUCH with themYou can use the sorting headers that come with the cards to make this a great sorting pocket chart center where they sort the picture cards by word family. Or you can have them sort horizontally. Another thing I like to do with the picture cards that kiddos love is building the words with magnet letters. Any time you tell them they can use the whiteboard or whiteboard easel, you are immediately crowned the BEST TEACHER EVER. I know I say that about a lot of things but hey, a lot of things impress them. Use pretzel sticks instead of base ten blocks or go to recess 5 minutes early or let them use smelly markers and youre queen for the day. Its the little things. Let them pick out cards and build the words with magnet letters on the whiteboard. If youd rather students stay at their seats during centers, you can also easily use a magnetic cookie sheet from the dollar store that are perfectly lap sized for students to put the cards on and build with magnet letters in their lap. You can also just let students take the cards and a blank sheet of copy paper and STAMP them. Stamps are always an engaging activity I LOVE these alphabet stamps because the letters are perfectly primary. Block Email From Software Spam Museum. You can also put them around the room and have students find them and write them on a piece of paper. I call that activity Find and Write super easy. Use that tack putty stuff to hang them on walls it doesnt leave a mark and goes oncomes off easy and you can peel it off and reuse it. I love it So all you do is put the cards around the room, tell kids how many there are, have them grab a piece of paper and a clipboard, and have them search for them and hunt for them all. Fun, easy practice that gets them up and moving I also LOVE sand writing You can get colored sand really cheap at craft stores. Fill a pencil box with it for easy storage and have students put a card at the top and trace the word in the sand while saying the sounds in the word. To make them a quick and easy matching center, snip the bottoms off and have them match the picture to the words as a little small group activity or literacy center. You can also laminate them and put them on a binder ring so students can grab it any time they need for help writing or spelling or just to practice reading the words. I like to put them on hooks so you can just grab the sound you want words for and take them to your seat or the writing center. Speaking of the writing center, heres my little writing center Its tiny and not too fancy but I like it. The Writing Center sign I just stole the letter headers from my black and white polka dots with pink trim word wall set I have them in other stylescolors too but this is the pink lime corner so I did pink I like to take the letter headers from them to use to label stuff because Im lazy and I like designing my own letters so they all match and arent as huge as the ones you buy. ANYWAY As you can see, there are writing materials and a Short A words chart for students to use for writing inspiration and for correct spelling of the short a words. The short a word chart is in my short A no prep pack  I have one for each phonics sound in the no prep pack it comes in. I just throw them all in an upside down binder in sheet protectors and flip to the sound that week. Its nice because kids can flip through if they want a different word that makes a different sound. Since theyre black and white, you can also print one for each kid to color themselves and keep in their writing folder for reference. I also throw my Themed Writing Charts in the binder for fun word choices by theme. They come in color blackwhite too but I throw the color ones in there because I think the color helps spark the imagination They have fun themes like ocean words, bugs, farm animals, zoo animals, nature words, home and family words, foods, color words, etc. Other fun sheets in the writing center are these writing helper sheets that have the short a words on the side. Theyre also included in my no prep packs or I have them in a year set with all the phonics sounds. I recommend the Phonics No Prep Mega Bundle of all the phonics packs bundled instead but if you just want these writing sheets, theyre in that year set I linked above. Please note that the phonics no prep mega bundle doesnt include the hands on centers if you want those, theyre in the Short Vowels Ultimate Bundle As you can see, there is the one drawing box and writing lines option to write a story using the short a words on the side OR a version that has 3 different boxes each with its own set of writing lines which is good for your lower students or just for individual sentence writing practice. There are TONS of other pages in my Short A Worksheets and Activities NO PREP pack as well it has over 4. Teachers spend so much time prepping and anything you can just get and immediately use without any cuttinglaminatingthinking is a dream come true. I have them for pretty much every phonics sound and the activities are consistent so once you explain them once, they can do them all year and all that changes is the phonics skill they focus on so students can spend all their cognitive energy on practicing that sound rather than how to do the activity.