Baby Animal Names Match Game

For years and years, All About Reading and All About Spelling were curriculum staples here at the Hill House.  This phonics curriculum is extremely homeschool mom-friendly, and the preparation time is streamlined.

All About Spelling and All About Reading both helped me as the homeschool teacher learn how to teach my children to phonics, which of course led to them spelling and reading.

➡ You can read about How I Teach Spelling in Our Homeschool, which is based on years of trial and error and lots of research!

This week, my 5 year old and I are practicing the words ‘mother’ and ‘baby’ while we play this Baby Animal Names match game from All About Reading!

➡ Take a look at how we Use Match Games in Our Homeschool with a variety of ages and stages.

Baby Animal Names Match Game

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In this matching game from All About Reading, your child will match animal babies with their mamas.

My son and I cut out the game together, and then placed ‘Mother’ at the top to form a column, and ‘Baby’ beside it to form a second column.

✔ Click here to download Baby Animal Names Match Game from All About Learning.

To play, my son wanted to turn the cards over over so only the words on the back were showing.  As he turned each card over, we sounded out the name of the animal on the front if it was a short word (such as ‘pig’).

If the word was longer, he identified the beginning sound of the word and I showed him how to sound out the rest, running my finger along as I made each phonetic sound.

He determined if it should go in the Mother column or the Baby column, and then put it in the right place.  We left space in the column to find the match.

My son is not yet reading, but can sound out most CVC words with help.  He’s getting closer to being ready to read!

I like the “extra” that this matching game offers in printing the names of animals and their babies.  My son was not familiar with the word ‘gosling’ or that a baby raccoon was called a kit.

I learned with my older children that having a print-rich environment is helpful for beginning readers.

We have used the match game several times already this week.  I’ll tuck it away and we will get it out again in next month and we will see how much he remembers!

Hop on over to All About Reading now and download your set of Baby Animal Names and match away!

Is Your Mama a Llama?

I couldn’t help but think of the book Is Your Mama a Llama? when I first saw this activity!  We’ve read it only a million times here at the Hill House.

So go dig out your copy, download this matching game, and have a great time your little ones today!