Jingle Bell Word Family Sort

This festive and fun jingle bell word family sort is sure to be a hit with your children this Christmas season. It’s a great activity for beginning readers, or use it with more advanced readers to practice new words.

Jingle Bell Word Family Sort

We have been working on word families lately. We started with -at words in our Room on the Broom Race to Learn -at Words. Aiden requested to learn -ap words next. We thought of all of the -ap words we knew, and I wrote them down. Then, I typed them up on the computer and printed out word cards. {You can also just write them by hand.}

You’ll need the following materials for this activity.

• word cards with the sight words or word families you would like to practice
• jingle bells {one for each word}
• string
• hole punch
• boxes or containers {one for each word family plus one extra to hold the jingle bell words at the start}

I punched holes in the word cards and tied them onto the jingle bells. I placed the jingle bell words into a box.

On another box I taped the word ending -ap. I taped the word ending -at onto a Christmas tin.

Have your child pick up a jingle bell and read the word. Then, place the word into the correct container. Words that end in -at go into the at container and words that end in -ap go into the ap container.

Variations

• Write the words directly onto the jingle bells.
• Turn the sorting into a race. Place the box of jingle bells on one side of the room and the word family containers on the other side of the room. Choose a jingle bell from the box and run to the other side of the room.
• Practice sight words, letters, or numbers instead of word families.

More Christmas Themed Reading Activities

• Try this preschool letter hunt in pretend snow.
• Become Christmas detectives and solve the case of the missing Christmas present by reading the clues.
• Read How the Grinch Stole Christmas and make a Grinch’s heart Christmas ornament.
• You’ll love this list of Christmas books for children. All of the books are either about the Christmas story or about values we like to celebrate during Christmas, like friendship.