Word Family Dice and Board Games

Today’s focus is word families and these two board games will give your little ones tons of practice with -in words. They’ll be having so much fun they won’t realise they’re learning!

There is one game for three-letter -in words, and one for four-letter -in words which will help you differentiate for your kids and give them a challenge if they need it.

As you can see from the picture, the dice show the onset (first part of the word) then the children just add ‘in’ on the end to make a complete word.

Both board games and dice come in colour and black and white so you can splurge or conserve that coloured ink in your printer!

What you need

• One copy of the free dice and both game boards (choose colour or black and white).
• Printing onto card will help the dice last longer and make construction easier.
• Scissors and glue for dice, pencils to colour dice letters.
• A small object/counter for each player to move around the game board.

How to construct

1. Cut carefully on the black lines around the outside of each die.
2. Fold along the dotted lines to make a cube.
3. Glue tabs to inner sides.
4. Laminate the game boards.

How to play

1. Choose a matching die and game board.
2. Place counters on START.
3. One child rolls the die, says the letter sound and then adds it to ‘in’ and says the whole word. For eg, if they roll ‘f’ they say ‘f’ then ‘fin’.
4. Then they place their counter on the word ‘fin’ that is next on the game board.
5. The children take it in turns to roll the die, say the word and move their counters.
6. Near the end of the game if word they’ve rolled is not on the board ahead they can jump to FINISH.

Variations

• Roll the die, say the letter then the word. How many rolls can they complete in 30 seconds?
• Roll the die, then write the ‘in’ word correctly into a writing journal.
• Roll the die, say the letter but add a different rime on the end such as ‘at’ or ‘op’. Is it a real word or a pretend word? For eg, roll an ‘f’ but say ‘fat’ or ‘fop’ instead of ‘fin’.

This activity is part of my Differentiated Interactive Word Families series.

The bundle is growing so if you buy now you’ll be able to download future word family packs for free.

Click here for more free word family downloads!

More board games available

I received this request from Melissa:

“I downloaded your -in game from your blog, LOVE it! Would you consider bundling your word family games into one purchase? My kiddos love playing it! They were begging to play before we read our Guided Reading books!”

So after such a great recommendation from Melissa’s kids I have bundled 20 board games together: 10 CVC and 10 CCVC. You can find them on Teachers Pay Teachers if you’d like to purchase them. Of course, Melissa received the set for free, because readers and customers who suggest new packs that I end up making always receive a free copy.

I hope you enjoy these games and wish you happy teaching and learning.