Consonant clusters, or trigraphs, are three letters that combine to create the same sound. You can find them in words like sprint, strong, and even the word through. These free Consonant Clusters Spelling Mats are a fun way for first grade and 2nd grade kids to practice spelling consonant blends.

Consonant Clusters Spelling Mats

The first time a child sees a cluster, they may be tempted to sound out each letter, making the word sound strange or unrecognizable to them. Helping our children recognize these consonant clusters will help them with reading skills, and these Consonant Clusters Spelling Mats give them a fun way to practice.

What do you get?

This freebie contains 8 pages of spelling mats. Each mat has a picture of a consonant cluster word, three blank circles for the child to fill in with the consonant cluster, and the ending of the word spelled out.

Prep Work

I love easy prep activities, and this is one of them.

1. Begin collecting bottle caps. We personally don’t use them, but family members do. I asked them to start putting them aside for us, and before long we had plenty of caps. You can also use magnetic letters if that works better for you.
2. Write letters on the top of your bottle caps. If you have enough bottle caps to write each letter twice, your child will have all the letters they need to complete the spelling cards. You will need…
   • spl – s, p, l
   • scr – s, c, r
   • shr – s, h, r
   • spr – s, p, r
   • squ – s, q, u
   • str – s, t, r
   • thr – t, h, r
3. Print and cut out the spelling mats. For added durability, print on cardstock and laminate.

Working on Consonant Clusters

If you child is new to consonant clusters, you may want to start out with some interactive notebooks and games. This will give them a chance to learn what each trigraph, or consonant clusters is, how to say them, and how to spell to them.

Now it is time to practice with the spelling mats.

Depending on the level and attention span of your child or students, here are a few options.

1. Give out all the spelling mats and bottle caps and let the student solve them all at once.
2. Choose two or three consonant clusters to work on, and give the students all the bottle caps.
3. You could do the same as step two, but only give out the bottle caps that will work with the spelling mats you provided.
4. Only give the student one consonant cluster at a time and provide just a few bottle caps. Maybe throw in one letter that they won’t use.

Children will see consonant clusters throughout their reading, and it is important for their reading skills that they know the sounds of each one. These fun spelling mats will get your little ones on there way to mastering them.

Phonics Activities

• Cut-and-Paste Trigraphs Worksheets
• Color and Read Book with Trigraphs List for practicing trigraphs pr, squ, and str
• Free Readers to Color and Read MORE words from  Trigraphs List
• thr words Playdough Mats
• Hot Cocoa Phonics makes fun winter activities for kindergarten
• Phonics Beginning Sounds Worksheets are a NO prep kindergarten worksheets to improve phonics skills.
• Christmas Phonics by making a Christmas trees by putting together words with the same beginning sounds.
• TH Worksheets – re-usable activity to help kids work on th sounds
• Mitten Beginning Sounds Matching is a fun Winter Activities for Kindergarten –
• Spring activities Kindergarten for working on consonant blends with digraph blends
• Ice Cream Themed Digraph kindergarten summer activities – sneak in some summer learning to improve reading skills with these cute, educational puzzles.
• Clip Cards are a fun Consonant blends activities – help kids learn to combine letters to make digraph sounds
• Spring Initial Blends Worksheets – super cute activity for helping kids master blends
• Graph a blends activities for 2nd graders – fun combination of math and language arts
• Color by blend worksheet – this is a fun way for kids to practice learning blends
• Consonant Blend Cluster Spelling Mats – hands on activity learning blends
• Kindergarten Word Families Sliders – help kids practice sounding out blends in words with this fun,  transportation themed reading activity for early readers.
• Reading and Writing qu words Worksheets

Download Consonant Clusters Spelling Mats

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• This set is for personal and classroom use only.
• This printable set may not be sold, hosted, reproduced, or stored on any other website or electronic retrieval system.
• Graphics Purchased and used with permission
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