Teaching Word Families with Ping Pong Balls

Young children need hands-on activities to learn, and literacy is no exception. Using ping pong balls when teaching word families certainly allows the children to get their hands busy! It’s a great way for kids to get in some fine motor practice as they’re learning about letters and words. It’s also perfect for a ball theme, which is today’s #PLAYfulpreschool focus.

Are you following Fun-A-Day’s LITERACY Pinterest board?

What a fun way of teaching word families!

I may get commissions for purchases made through links in this post.

Materials Needed
Ping pong balls
Permanent marker
Styrofoam base
Golf tees

Prep
Decide which word families to focus on first, then grab the permanent marker. Write one letter on each ping pong ball to correspond with the word families that will be taught.

Place the appropriate number of golf tees into the styrofoam base. Try to ensure they’re spaced far enough apart so the ping pong balls don’t touch. Since the word families I chose were just three letters, I just used three tees.

Directions
Call the child over and introduce the concept. For example, I might say, “Let’s make some words with these ping pong balls!”

Since they ARE balls, the kiddo may want to throw or bounce them a little bit. I think that’s a great warm up! Go over letter identification while tossing the balls back and forth. “Throw me the ‘a’!” “Oh, I caught the ‘g’!”

Place one word up on the golf tees, encouraging the child to help. “Let’s make the word ‘dig’ together! I bet you can help me figure out which letters we need. Let’s say ‘dig’ slowly. Hmmm, I hear the sound /d/ at the beginning. The letter ‘d’ says that sound! Let’s find the letter ‘d’!”

After making the first word, set out a few other balls with letters written on them. Make sure that the letters would work as part of the word family you’re discussing. For example, with ‘dig’ I chose the letters r, b, and z to make more words with.

Explain how to change the word into another word. “We can change words we know into new words just by changing one letter! Let’s change ‘dig’ into ‘zig’. /Z/ is the sound I hear at the beginning of the word ‘zig’. Which of these letters should be use next? Yes, the letter z! Let’s take ‘d’ off of ‘dig’ and put the z at the beginning. It’s not ‘dig’ anymore! Now it’s ‘zig’!” You can also touch on making new words by change the last letter!

Keep moving along with one word family, helping the child as needed. Model and think out loud as much as possible. This allowed the child to better understand the process. If you’re so inclined, move onto another word family!

Additional ideas
Of course, the ping pong ball letters can be used for more than just teaching word families. They’re great for letter identification, practicing letter sounds, letter matching, etc. Make names using the ping pong letters! Allow older children to practice spelling words with the letters. Use them on the golf tees or toss them around for a more active game. Lots of playful literacy fun!

How do you go about teaching word families? How would you and your kiddos use ping pong ball letters?

More from the #PLAYfulpreschool teachers –

Done-for-You Preschool Resources

Planning meaningful lessons for students week after week, all while balancing other teaching responsibilities and a personal life, can be a daunting task. That’s where Preschool Teacher 101 comes in to save you time!

Preschool Teacher 101 is excited to share with you some amazing lesson plans, activity packs, and much more! We offer a wide variety of themes that are frequently used in preschool classrooms, as well as some less common (but super interesting) themes. Click on the images below to learn more about some of our literacy product offerings.

Join The Pack from Preschool Teacher 101 today for exclusive access to our amazing products. And we even have three different membership options to suit your needs!