Winter Mittens Initial Blends Puzzles – Phonics Activity for Kids

Looking for a fun way to enhance literacy skills this winter? Check out this adorable winter-themed mitten blends activity! Perfect for kindergarten and first grade, it focuses on phonemic awareness and phonics practice with 20 initial consonant blends and related pictures. This free printable phonics blends can be used by parents, teachers, or homeschoolers as extra practice or a winter literacy center. Make learning engaging and festive while sneaking in some spelling and reading!

blends activity for kids

I love incorporating seasonal themes and holidays into our learning activities! During the winter months of December, January, and February, I’ve noticed that students become more engaged when we tie lessons to the season. This adorable winter-themed mitten blends activity is a fantastic way for kids to enhance their phonemic awareness and literacy skills. It’s perfect for kindergarten and first-grade students, allowing them to learn while having a lot of fun!

This free printable phonics activity features 20 initial consonant blends, complete with pictures of words that contain those blends. The activity covers l blends, r blends, and s blends, making it a comprehensive and enjoyable learning tool. Whether you’re a parent, teacher, or homeschooler, this fun winter phonics activity is an excellent way to sneak in some spelling and reading practice. You can use it as extra practice, as part of a winter literacy center in your classroom, or as a supplement to your homeschool phonics curriculum.

We have lots more winter activities, free english worksheets and blends activities to make learning fun! Plus don’t miss consonant blends worksheets, snowmen blends worksheets, and beginning blends game.

Phonics Blends

Start by scrolling to the bottom of the post, under the terms of use, and click on the text link that says >> _____ <<. The pdf file will open in a new window for you to save the freebie and print the template.

Blends Phonics

Included in these Mitten Blend Puzzles are 20 blend puzzles covering

• Ll blends
• Rr blends
• Ss blends

To prepare for this fun learning activity I recommended that you print these on cardstock and laminate. This will allow you to reuse this printable over and over again. Next cut out each puzzle. I prefer to cut out each entire puzzle and then go back and cut the puzzles out. Each puzzle will have two pieces.

Winter Activities for Kindergarten

Students will first pick a picture puzzle piece that they would like to start with. I always ask my students to point to the picture and say what it is.

Winter Activities for 1st Grade

Next, students will sort through all of the other puzzle pieces, looking for the correct blend that matches the picture. Once found, they will place the two pieces together and set aside.

Students will continue this until all puzzles have been completed or until time has been called.

beginning consonant blends activity

Younger students, and even struggling students, may find all twenty puzzles at once very overwhelming. This can lead to discouragement and the feeling of failure and we obviously do not want to do that. We want to set our students up for success from the start.

You can start by giving students one or two l blends, r blends, and s blends mitten puzzles. This will allow them to master the concept first. Once they are able to do those without any issues, you can slowly add in more until all twenty puzzles are being used.