Beginning Consonant Blends Activities That Are Easy & Fun

In this post I share strategies for how to teach beginning consonant blends, lesson plans, consonant blends practice activities and PowerPoints, learning videos and songs, and children’s books to incorporate in your phonics lessons.

Teaching consonant blends is a key phonics concept in grades K-2. The teaching ideas and blends activities in this post will help your students master this foundational reading skill and keep your phonics lessons engaging!

What are beginning consonant blends?

A consonant blend is a combination of 2 (or 3) consonants in which the sound of each letter can be heard. For example, in the word flag, fl is the consonant blend. You can hear both the /f/ and the /l/ sounds in the blend.

Beginning consonant blends come at the start of a word. They can be categorized into groups based on the letters contained in the blend.

beginning consonant blends phonics posters — Beginning Blends Phonics Posters (**source**)

Beginning blends include:

L Blends: bl, cl, fl, gl, pl
R Blends: br, cr, dr, fr, gr, pr, tr
S Blends: sc, sk, sl, sm, sn, st, sw

Do you teach blends as one sound or two?

Since each letter sound can be heard in consonant blends, we teach blends as separate sounds. Each letter within a consonant blend represents its own phoneme.

The main difference between digraphs and blends is that digraphs are two letters that come together to make one new sound, while blends are letter combinations where you can still hear each individual sound.

How do you teach beginning consonant blends?

As you can see, there are a ton of consonant blends to teach. However, students don’t need to remember every single one. Since blends maintain their phonemes, you won’t need to teach any sounds. The main thing to focus on is teaching how to blend.

As with any concept, start by explicitly explaining what consonant blends are and elaborate by providing examples. I use a teaching PowerPoint with graphics and colors to provide a visual for my students while I introduce and explain the skill.

beginning consonant blends powerpoint — Beginning Blends Teaching Slides (**source**)

Next, provide opportunities for whole group practice with reading, writing, and saying words with consonant blends.

I include multiple practice games in my interactive teaching PowerPoint to have my students practice in a variety of ways. We also reuse the practice slides during our centers as an additional independent practice option.

beginning blends phonics games — Beginning Blends Phonics Games (**source**)

What activities can you do to practice beginning consonant blends?

Provide a wide variety of activities and gamify your phonics lessons as much as possible to keep this topic fun and engaging for students.

One activity that my students always love is going on a consonant blend scavenger hunt. We look around the room, or outside if time and weather allow, for words with the target blend we are working on.

Beginning Consonant Blends Activities

Here are some other activities to practice with beginning consonant blends:

Word Building

Word building is a key component in building phonemic awareness. It is also a great way to make phonics more hands-on with the use of manipulatives. Work with students to build words, substitute sounds, and add and delete sounds using magnetic letters and letter tiles.

It’s super easy to make your own magnetic letter tiles, letter cubes, or letter cards without spending money, so that’s an additional bonus!

Decodable Passages

Decodable phonics passages or readers encourage students to sound out words using decoding strategies instead of making guesses. Students are able to practice applying specific phonics skills in context while also building confidence in their reading skills.

Decodable passages are also an excellent resource to use during small group instruction and as an intervention.

Try this source for decodable passages that target beginning consonant blends. Students read the text, locate and highlight words in the pattern, then answer simple comprehension questions.

Word Mapping Consonant Blends

Word mapping is a research-backed phonics instructional strategy that helps students make connections between speech sounds (phonemes) and the letter or letter combinations that represent those sounds (graphemes).

The word mapping process helps students learn to read by promoting the process of orthographic mapping. It also gives students a physical way to link the sounds in a word to the letters that make those sounds, through the use of manipulatives and visuals.

Consonant Blend Sound Sorts

beginning blends pocket chart sorts — Beginning Blend Sound Sorts (**source**)

Use pictures to help students make connections between different blends and the sounds they hear in words that contain those blends. One way to do this is with a sound sorting activity. Use a pocket chart and picture cards and have students sort them into categories for the various consonant blends.

Identifying Same Sounds

Play games and do activities that help students build auditory discrimination skills. Display multiple pictures, as well as a word with a consonant blend. Ask students to read the word, say the picture names, and listen to find which picture name has the same blend or blend type as the written word.

beginning consonant blends task cards — Beginning Blends Task Cards (**source**)

These Same Sound task cards are included in a complete Initial Blends phonics unit.

Consonant Blends Read Aloud Books

Read alouds are an excellent way to introduce, review, or practice any phonics topic. When teachers read aloud in the classroom, they are able to model what fluent reading sounds like. Students build phonological awareness skills as they listen to stories read aloud.

Try one of these awesome read aloud stories in your classroom to teach beginning blends:

Beginning Consonant Blends Read Alouds

The Very Clumsy Click Beetle

By Eric Carle

A little click beetle falls onto his back and requests the help of an older, wiser click beetle in this joyful Eric Carle story. At first, the little beetle can’t get on his feet, but he keeps trying after getting some more encouragement from other animals and bugs along the way. This story provides a plethora of examples of words with both initial and final blends, and students will love the classic Eric Carle imagery!

A Frog Thing

By Eric Drachman

Frank the frog thinks he can do anything he sets his mind to–and he has set his mind to learning to fly! When everyone keeps laughing at his unsuccessful attempts, Frank gets discouraged. He doesn’t give up, and after a special encounter with a mother bird and her babies, Frank gets the ride of his life and his dreams come true.

Stop, Drop, & Flop in the Slop

By Brian P. Cleary

In this book from the Sounds Like Reading series, students will enjoy fun illustrations and silly text that has a special focus on words with short vowel sounds and consonant blends. The text uses rhyme, repetition, and illustrations to help students with this phonics concept. As the book progresses, the sentences on the pages become a little more difficult to help challenge students with new words.

The Frail Snail on the Trail

By Brian P. Cleary

This story from the Sounds Like Reading series has a focus on consonant blends and long vowel sounds. Wacky sentences and colorful art make this book a fun read for young students, and the focus on phonics skills gives an excellent way to practice reading words in context.

Learning Videos & Songs

Learning videos give students another way to process information, since videos often present the information in a different way.

Songs help students learn through keeping them engaged, addressing multiple intelligences, and aiding in memorization. Children remember information more effectively through rhythm and rhyme. Therefore, using chants, raps, and songs in your phonics lessons can help students remember information and retrieve that information when they need to.

Here are some fun songs to play during your consonant blends lessons:

What Is a Blend? | br, cr, dr, fr | Writing & Reading Skills for Kids | Phonics Song | Jack Hartmann

Consonant Blends Worksheets

beginning consonant blends phonics worksheets — Beginning Blends Practice Worksheets (**source**)

While worksheets shouldn’t be the only activity you provide your students, they can be great tools for additional practice or homework. Students need to be able to write and spell words with consonant blends, and worksheets can help promote those skills when used appropriately. You can try these fun ways to make worksheets more engaging by adding novelty and getting creative.

Centers Activities

beginning consonant blends phonics centers — Beginning Blends Phonics Centers (**source**)

Stick with a familiar weekly phonics routine that includes similar phonics tasks, games, and centers each week. Clear expectations and a streamlined routine will prevent you from spending valuable time giving directions, and it allows for more student independence during centers time.

I find it’s best to stick to a weekly phonics routine so that students know what to expect and what’s expected of them. Using consistent and familiar activities will make your phonics activities easier to manage for both you and your students.

Quick Phonics Assessments

Get a glance at students’ progress with a short, one-page assessment that allows you to collect data and inform your instruction easily and quickly.

Get Beginning Consonant Blends Lesson Plans

If you’re looking for a complete phonics unit to teach, practice, and assess beginning consonant blends, check out this Initial Blends phonics unit. This unit includes elaborate and interactive teaching PowerPoint slides, several center activities, phonics practice pages, detailed lesson plans, and assessments.