We’re going on a letter hunt.
We’re going to catch a big one.
I’m not scared!
What a beautiful day!
Have your students ever been on a letter hunt?
Letter hunting provides our youngest students a chance to practice foundational reading skills- recognizing letters!
It’s a great way to practice letter recognition and automaticity, and is a must in any primary classroom.
It’s simple, really.
You just need a few supplies to make this activity an engaging, meaningful work station!
Gather up your magnetic letters (if you don’t have a gigantic stash in your classroom, I’m sure you can find them hidden in a dark closet at your school or even at a local garage sale for cheap! Every reading teacher needs these in their classroom.
You don't need to buy special magnetic letters, but these are my favorites... consider having a set of uppercase and lowercase. Start with uppercase as that is what you'll find on the word searches. Then later, switch to lowercase! Then they are working on MATCHING!
You’ll also need a few magnifying glasses (ask to borrow from your science teacher friends, they should have plenty to share), then get some crayons, and printed word searches.
Students doing the letter hunt activity (probably in a work on words stations or a fluency station) will use the materials to ‘hunt’ for specific letters depending on what you are teaching that day/week/month- or just based on the letter they pull out of the bag!
Students choose a magnetic letter from the bag, get a color crayon that matches the color of the letter- then they go hunting for as many of that letter as they can find on their word search. When a student finds that letter, they color it on their word search. When they have hunted and found as many first letters as they can, they choose a second letter, match the crayon, and continue to hunt! Students can hunt for as many letters as their station time allows.
While it’s certainly FUN for students it’s also FUNctional! Kids are learning tracking left to right and return sweep too! As long as you model how to do it that way before you place the materials in a station! :) At the end of the station time, the student’s word search page will be a rainbow of letters found and recognized!
And you will be a happy teacher because your students will be solidifying their letter recognition skills. It’s a win-win! It wouldn’t be Friday without a freebie! Or in this case a Saturday Special! :)
Here are the directions to get your students started in your classroom.
Feel free to snag this, HERE and let the letter hunting begin!
