I Spy a Sound are fun and engaging phonics activities that you can use to work on letter sounds with your kindergarten students.

This post contains affiliate links.

I love finding new ways to engage students when they are learning a new skill! Phonics can become repetitive, so I was excited to play this I Spy a Sound game with my students. They loved it and were eager to play with me every time I took it out!

Importance of Phonics

Learning to connect the written symbol (the letter) to its sound is one of the foundational skills that students need to become readers and writers. Phonics needs to be explicitly taught and practiced with students. I use a routine to teach my students letter sounds, and it is working incredibly well for them!

As a kindergarten educator, learning about how children learn to read and using a sound wall has changed my practice for the better! Using games like I Spy a Sound also helps my students solidify their phonics knowledge in an engaging way.

Digital Phonics Activities

I love using digital tools in my classroom. Google Slides has made my life so easy, and my students are better able to engage with the content. They can clearly see what is being projected in the classroom, and they love coming up to the projector and pointing things out on it.

When I created the I Spy a Sound game, I knew that a digital version would be so perfect to be able to practice phonics skills as a class. It’s like doing a number talk – but with letters!

I start out by choosing my slide, then saying, “I spy a word that begins with the sound /k/”. Students then raise their hands to tell me the word they think it is. I can then point to the image of the word they said and repeat the beginning sound.

I keep ‘spying’ different sounds on each slide until we are finished. This could be when every student has has a turn, or I’ve done a certain number of slides.

Phonics Activities

I also want my students to have some independent practice using their phonics skills. I’ve made 2 different options that students can use: a table-top literacy center or a write-the-room activity.

Table-Top

The mats can be laminated or put in protective sleeves. Students say the word, then cover the image with the letter that begins the word (I used magnetic letters, but you could use any alphabet manipulative).

Write the Room

I the set of 6 cards around the classroom and added the recording page to some clipboards. Students walked around the classroom with the recording page and wrote down the beginning sound for each card. They LOVED this and told me I needed to do more write-the-room activities for them!

If you would like to try these I Spy a Sound activities with your students, you can find them here: