My preschooler is starting to play around with spoken words more. We are focusing on learning letters sounds and blending sounds together to make words during our short car trips. This quick and easy AT word family hat activity takes the phonemic awareness game to a phonics activity using note cards and a hat.
This week the #PLAYfulPreschool team is learning with HATS! Using this theme as our inspiration, we put together this word family – learn to read activity for young children. It is best completed with children who are familiar with their letter sounds. Adaptations provided below the activity.
Affiliate links included in this article.
Quick and Easy AT Word Family Hat Activity
Learning Objective: The child will blend beginning sounds with _at to make at family words.
Materials Needed for At Word Family Hat Activity:
Directions for At Word Family Hat Activity:
1. Cut the cards in half. Write the letters h, m, c, b, sp, r, h, p, fl on one half card.
2. Write a line and the words at on a full card.
3. Place all the half cards with one letter in a hat.
4. Let your child draw a card out and say the letter sound.
5. Place the letter on the _at card. Blend the sounds together h – at.
6. Say the word : HAT
7. Repeat steps 4-6.
For children learning their letter sounds, skip the word family card. Just draw the letter cards out of the hat and say the name.
Book Connections for Preschool Hat Theme
Books are always a great way to develop an expansive vocabulary, work on reading comprehension, and story re-telling skills. Here are some of our favorite picture books all about HATS! Encourage your child to look at the words in each book and find a word HAT in the text.
Have an advanced reader? Encourage them to keep a tally chart for the amount of times the word hat appears in the book. Compare the word counts between 2 books!
Caps for Sale: A Tale of a Peddler, Some Monkeys and Their Monkey Business
Twelve Hats for Lena : A Book of Months
Celebrate Cinco de Mayo with the Mexican Hat Dance (Stories to Celebrate)
If You Have A Hat: A Silly Rhyming Picture Book for Kids
Miss Fannie’s Hat (Picture Puffins)
Tornado Slim and the Magic Cowboy Hat
Happy Hat Day: A Silly Rhyming Picture Book for Kids
Hat Theme Preschool Activities from the #PLAYfulPreschool Team:
Upper and Lower Case Hat Match by Rainy Day Mum
Literacy Activities for Preschoolers: Beginning Sound Hats by Growing Book by Book
Quick and Easy AT Word Family Hat Activity by The Educators’ Spin On It
Fine-Motor Birthday Hat for Preschoolers by Life Over C’s
Preschool Hat Improv Game by Capri + 3
Guess The Hat? Sight Word and Colour Recognition by Learning 2 Walk
Hat Matching Printable Cards by Powerful Mothering
You may also like these learning themed collections:
What a cool game to play.
I love how easy this is to do! And, I of course love the book choices!
We are working on -at ending words. I love your game. We will try it out.
Simple things are the best and this would be so easy to set up. Thank you for the inspiration.