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Until recently, we have just grazed over which letters are vowels and which are consonants, but now my oldest is advancing in phonics, so we needed more practice! After reviewing the vowels a couple times, I put together a little hands-on learning activity for them to practice on their own...a vowel round up! And it was right up their alley! I took two wooden boxes (the girls use these as horse pens) and labeled them vowels and consonants.
Then I took all their little horses and labeled them with letters. I positioned them into a herd on the kitchen floor. We happened to have a lot of these little horses, but they break easily, so something like this may be better for little hands.
Next I turned them loose, and they got the job of rounding up all those wild horses into the correct pen.
They ran them each up to the pens and placed them in either the consonant or vowel pen.
It didn't take them long to sort them, and they did it three times! Then they asked to play again a couple days later.
They love horses, so using them for some hands-on practice certainly encouraged them to practice sorting consonants and vowels. This would be a simple activity to do with cars or dinosaurs or anything really!
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