If you’re looking for a motivating, visual way to teach kids how to read and write blends like BL-, FR- and SM-, you’ll love these free ice cream puzzles. They’re great to use as literacy centers, guided reading activities or homeschool practice. You’ll love the low prep set up and kids will love the sweet theme: ice cream!
Grab your set below and then join the priority list for our VIP teaching membership, The Science of Reading Formula, so you can unlock access to all of our teaching tools in one time-saving spot.
Getting Ready
To prep, I simply printed the ice cream puzzles (below) on cardstock to give them extra durability and cut along the dotted lines to separate the pieces. If you’ll be using them in the classroom, you could laminate them to make the cards even sturdier.
I placed all of the ice cream cones in a stack face down on the table and then spread out the ice cream scoops face up around it.
Ice Cream Blend Puzzles
When I was ready, I showed the first child a blend ice-cream cone and asked her to sound it out. She sounded out the letters slowly at first and then pushed them together, “/s/  /l/  /sl/”.
Then, she looked at the ice cream cones to find a picture that started with /sl/.
“Plane? No. Slide? YES!”
I recommend starting with one set of blends such as the R blends to begin with and then adding on the other blends when kids are ready. I included a full set of L blends and R blends plus some bonus cards for W and C/K blends.
You can use the full set as a review activity.
Blends Memory
For extra practice, kids can play a round of Memory by mixing up several sets of cards and flipping the pieces over face down on a table. The first player picks up two cards and, if they match, keeps them. If the cards aren’t a pair, she turns them back over in the same spot. Then, the next player tries his luck at finding a match.
The player with the most pairs when all cards have been claimed wins the game.
Blends Sort
The ice cream blend puzzles are also great to use for sorting! Children lay out the three category cards on the table: L blends, R blends and W blends.
Picking up one ice cream cone at a time, kids say the name of the picture out loud and place it in the correct pile. Plane would go in the L blend pile, grass would be placed in the R blend stack, etc. Any rule breaker words that don’t fit into one of those categories would go in an oddball pile off to the side.
Reading and sorting continues until all cards have been sorted.
Ready to Play?!
Click the blue button below to grab your freebie and then request an invite to our VIP teaching membership, The Science of Reading Formula, so you can teach reading the easier, brain-friendly way.
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