Penguin Word Family Sort

This playful penguin word family sort is sure to be a hit with kids and you’ll love that they’re practicing important reading skills.

To make it easier for you to get EVERY student bigger results, the freebie comes in TWO versions so you can quickly adjust the difficulty:

1. One focuses on rhyming
2. And the second option stretches students to spell CVC words.

Grab your copy below and then hop over and snag more print and play Editable Sight Word Games your kids will love in our shop!

Getting Ready

To play, I printed off the word family sort on cardstock to give it extra durability and cut along the lines to separate the pieces.

I printed off a record sheet for each player and – viola! We were all set for some penguin fun.

Word Family Penguin Sort

To start, I placed one ice rink and several sets of penguins on the table in front of the small group.

Since my students are new to CVC words, I wanted to work on only one family at a time.

I reminded the kids that word families have the same sound and end in the same letters.

For our first family, we chose to work on words ending in the -AN sound.

One by one, the kids drew a fish from the pile, read the word out loud and decided if it ended in -AN.

If it did, they placed the fish underneath the penguin.

If the fish didn’t belong, students simply placed it to the side so we could find its matching word family later.

Once my students had a handle on the -AN word family, we started working through the next two: -IG and -OP.

Gradually, I increased the number of word families on the table until all five were out and all the fish had been sorted.

Then, I handed out the record sheets and we worked together to read the penguins and add them to the matching column on the paper.

Grab Your Download

Click the blue “download” below to grab the freebie and then hop over to snag our awesome Editable Sight Word Activities in our shop so you can practice any word under the sun!