Spring Letter Sounds Clip Cards {Free Printable}

Inside: These rain and rainbow-themed spring letter sounds clip cards help children practice matching letters of the alphabet with their initial sounds.

Today I’m sharing a simple alphabet clip card activity with you. You can use these as part of a weather unit, or after teaching your kids about “April showers”.

Or, you can just use them whenever you need a fresh rainy day activity.

I believe children learn best through engaging activities. They need time for exploring, manipulating, and experiencing different items to gain a better understanding.

I hope these spring letter sound clip cards help you make teaching beginning sounds an active learning experience.

Spring Letter Sounds Clip Cards Activity

Materials & Preparation

The preparation for this activity is pretty quick.

Just print the pages out, and cut the clip cards apart. If desired, laminate them for extra durability.

Finally, you’ll need clothespins with the cards so children can clip the correct answer on each card.

You can use plain wooden clothespins, or get fancy and paint a few blue and yellow. I just used acrylic paint and coated the blue one with sparkle glaze.

(Scroll to the bottom of this post to get the free printable.)

How to use the Clip Cards

The activity aims for children to practice alphabet identification and letter-sound recognition.

1. To begin, children need to identify the picture inside the cloud.

2. Encourage students to try naming all the letters inside the raindrops, and to say their initial sounds.

3. Then, they should identify the correct raindrop and clip a clothespin on that letter (the one that matches the initial sound of the picture inside the cloud.  

4. This last step is optional, and I forgot to take a photo of it for you. For children ready to trace letters, you can provide them with the recording sheet included in the printable file. The students can look for the letter they clipped on each card, check that the picture matches their card, and trace that letter on the recording sheet.

Using the recording sheet also turns this into a self-checking activity – perfect for more advanced students to use in a literacy center.

Skills Addressed

One of the most important pre-reading skills is hearing each of the individual sounds inside a word. Once children are able to do that, they can progress to connecting sounds to letters.

By practicing letter to letter-sound matching, children are laying the foundation for sounding out words accurately later on in their literacy journey.

Additionally, pressing a clothespin to open and close it is an excellent way for children to build the fine motor muscles in their little fingers. It is a great tool to teach children gripping, pinching, and manipulating a small object that helps develop hand-eye coordination. These skills, in turn, will help children with handwriting later on.

Extend the Learning

Teaching children informally about new concepts can give them a better understanding of the world we live in. 

You might extend the children’s learning by discussing other scientific elements in the cards such as

  • rainbows, rain, and clouds
  • weather in general
  • seasons and what clothes we wear when it rains.

In addition, you can adjust the fine motor challenge by using different clothespins. Children with strong fine motor skills may enjoy using tiny clips. Students who struggle with using their hands may need a clip that is easier to squeeze, such as plastic chip clips.

As another extension for this activity, you can follow up with my free hungry caterpillar letter sound matching cards. There are lots of ways to play with these cards, and they all are a fun way to practice matching letters to their initial sounds.

Use as an Assessment Tool

This printable can be an excellent assessment tool to find out exactly which letters need more work.

Older children who are independent might be able to complete this whole activity by themselves. You can simply do a check to see if everything is correct.

To optimize learning for younger kids, I highly recommend supporting them and being an active participant during this activity. Give clues, scaffold learning, and ask children to repeat any letters if unfamiliar with them.  

Download the Clip Cards

Ready for the free spring clip cards?

To get your very own set, you can sign up right here:

    I’ll add you to my weekly-ish newsletter too – it’s full of ideas and more free printables. Of course, you can unsubscribe at any time.

    I hope your children enjoy this cute and fun hands-on activity!

    Happy Teaching

    Heather

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