Free Beginning Blends Bump! Game

As the kindergarten year has gone by, we have been hard at work learning to read. My kindergartener has always been a reluctant reader, but she loves playing games. She even loves games that are educational! So this free blends Bump! game has been used a lot in our house the last few days!

No kid wants to sit at their desk all day doing repetitive worksheets, drilling with flashcards or listening to lectures.

Actually, I can’t think of any adults who would like to do that either! ha!

For every topic that we conquer in our homeschool classroom, I try to involve a game. Even better if that game involves moving their bodies, engaging multiple senses, or really giving them a different way of viewing the topic.

This week I started working on beginning blends with my kindergartener, Jaida. She finally announced last week that she was ready to read “words with four letters”.

Not to be confused with the nasty four-letter-words.

Learning words with only four letters can be limiting (though not at all impossible since I have a great Spin & Win game that focuses on just that), learning beginning blends with pictures is a totally different story.

Some of the vocabulary might be new to our little learners, but they can focus on the letters that create the blend rather than worry about sounding out long vowels, diphthongs, using magic ‘e’, or other phonics levels that they haven’t reached yet.

By giving them practice with the sounds first, they become more confident when it comes time to use the skill in some tougher words.

I’ve created a Wild About Beginning Blends and Digraphs Mega Pack that includes sorting, multiple puzzle formats, sorting, magnet mats, play dough mats, and more!

To go along with it I have a free blends Bump! Game to share with you today.If you haven’t played Bump! yet, you are in for a treat! We have so much fun playing! We’ve played it for learning CVC words, time, shapes, division, multiplication, and addition just to name a few!

How to play Blends Bump!:

Students spin and then cover up a picture that matches the beginning sound. If the other player spins the same sound they can bump the first player off the space or choose a new space of their own. Spinning the same sound twice means that the player can “freeze” the space by adding a second marker on it. (Similar to “kinging” in checkers.)

While the kids are playing they don’t even realize that they are learning. In fact, Bump! is my kindergartener’s most requested school activity each day.