Multisensory Monday: Raindrop Letter & Sound Matching!

April showers bring May flowers, but this fun activity does not need to be saved for a rainy day!

Materials Needed:

• Poster paper
• Crayons
• Black permanent sharpie marker

  • You may also want another color to distinguish vowels.

• Clear, blue, and green glass gems (pictured right)

  • Available for purchase at the Dollar Store or most craft stores.

• A dry-erase marker

  • For variations of the main activity.

Preparation:

1. Create a raindrop template and make twenty-six or more raindrops on your paper.

   1. Having additional raindrops will allow you to expand this activity for use with other skills.

2. Write lower-case letters on the raindrops and upper-case letters on the glass gems. The sharpie will work well on both.
3. Laminate your poster for durability and save it for future use.

Make it Multisensory!

Have your child match uppercase letters to their lowercase partners on the poster. As they pick up a gem, they will need to identify the letter and then place it on the corresponding raindrop.

You can put a select number of gems in the “cloud,” so your child will only focus on a few at a time. It may be helpful to make the vowels a different color. Let your child know that these letters are special because we need them to make words!

Letter Sound Identification:

Call out letter sounds and have your child find the corresponding letter and cover it with a plain gemstone. For example, ask your child to find the letter that says /b/. The student will need to identify the letter, say the sound, and place the gemstone on the corresponding raindrop.

Variations:

If you left some raindrops blank and laminated your poster board, you can add digraphs or vowel teams to them with a dry erase marker. For example, you could write the digraphs sh, ch, wh, th, ph once these sounds have been taught. Then ask your child to find the raindrop that shows the sound of /sh/.

Another variation is to have the student write the sound he or she hears in the blank raindrop. You will orally call out a sound, such as /ch/, and your student can then write the letters with a dry erase marker in the blank raindrop.