First and second graders blend basketball and letters

Learning blended words is all about practice and repetition, and Katherine Caswell’s first and second grade students at Sanfordville Elementary School participated in a fun activity to help them remember words they have been studying.

Blended words are words that combine letter sounds. Through sounding out their letters, students are able to decipher the given word while also making note of how it is spelled.

Today, Ms. Caswell’s students focused on words like flesh, grill, crush and fresh. They were given tiny sheets of paper with blended words written on them and the goal was to sound out the word, say it out loud to the class, and then shoot a free throw into the basket. Once they made their shot, they’d head back to their desks and write down the word they had on the paper. 

With encouragement from their peers, students excitedly stood on the spot marked “x” as they tried their hand at making a shot.

“They’re working on the sounds of words like bull and coal,” Ms. Caswell said. “This week, they started the ‘R’ blend so those are words like fur and purr. Then, they work on reading and writing those words and I like this activity because it gets them moving while doing something they enjoy.”

Students also wrote letters in colorful sand, focusing on the shape of the letters and the sounds they make.