Squirrel and Acorn Fall Letter Sound Cards

Inside: download these free printable fall letter sound cards and read about some fun ways to use them with your preschoolers or kindergarteners.

squirrel and acorn letter sounds activity with a hand holding up a card with an acorn letter sound card

Fall is in full swing, and we’re loving all things autumn right now! I already have some fun fall crafts and a huge list of apple activities here on the blog. I’ve never done squirrels and acorns though…

My own kids used to love collecting acorns, and we all still think squirrels are amusing (I don’t think I’ll ever grow out of watching their antics!) If your students are the same way, then I think they’ll enjoy today’s activity.

Fall Letter Sound Cards

Your little learners can help the squirrels find their favorite acorns with these cute cards for small group initial sound matching practice.

pairs of cards featuring a squirrel holding a leaf and an acorn, each with letter sound pictures on top.

Skills Covered

You can use these cards to work on either or both of these skills:

Matching words with the same beginning sounds (a.k.a. recognizing alliteration)
Matching initial sound pictures with uppercase and lowercase letters

What’s Included in the Free Printable

This 6-page free printable includes 26 squirrel cards and 26 acorn cards. The squirrel cards have just a letter sound picture, while the squirrel cards also feature letters. Both cards also have labels to foster print awareness and clarify what each picture is supposed to be.

a hand holding up a card with an acorn letter sound card above the squirrel and acorn letter sounds activity

Preparation & Materials

Once you download the file (see below), just print the pages and cut out the cards. (You may want to print it on cardstock for durability.) Easy peasy!

Then, simply pull out the pairs of cards that you want your students to work on.

How to Play

1. First, review all the cards so that your students know what words are pictured.

2. Next, ask a student to pick up one squirrel card and say the word pictured on the leaf, and then say the isolated initial sound.

3. Then, have students search for an acorn card that has the matching initial sound and letter.

You may also like to pair your Squirrel Sound cards with this Squirrel Letter Recognition Activity from ABCs of Literacy.

4. (Optional) To add an element of play, you could hand out real acorns for every correctly matched pair. Then, students can “feed” the acorns to a toy squirrel or a picture of a squirrel.

child's hands holding a bunch of acorns and a few fall leaves

Download the Squirrel Sound Cards

Ready for the free letter sound cards?

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Happy Teaching,

Heather