Wooden actors!

Make a collection of wooden spoons and provide an assortment of sticky paper, pre-cut into eyes/mouths/noses etc, wool for hair and scraps of material for costumes. Allow children time to experiment with creating different characters from their wooden spoon. When children are happy with the concept you can introduce the following activities, for which you will also need a set of initial letter cards:

• give each child a letter - ask them to think of a wacky / scary / trendy name using that initial sound and then create a character to suit it. (eg Sir Silly Sandy Sausages).
• children could create a bank of words beginning with 'their' sound and use it to tell stories involving their character
• some of the stories can be recorded for others to listen to - can the listeners identify the sound that is the topic of the story?
• working with the whole class, sit in a circle with each child holding their character. Moving around the circle, encourage each pupil to contribute a sentence to a class story that incorporates as many of the characters as possible.

Sounds OK!

There are no end of games / activities / teaching sessions that can be based around a simple collection of 26 cards, each one displaying 1 initial letter. Below are a few suggestions:

• arrange the cards into groups of letters that look similar
• sort the cards into sets that make a similar sound
• display the cards so all can see them, then tell a story emphasising 1 initial letter sound in each sentence - at the end of each sentence ask a child to find the letter that has been heavily emphasised
• select 1 of the sounds - make a class list of as many words they can think of beginning with that sound in 60 seconds
• give each pair of children 1 card - ask them to find as many instances of their sound on display / in books / on labels as they can
• play snap or pelmanism with 2 sets of the cards