Add the rainbow beginning sounds puzzles to your collection of spring activities for preschoolers. The free printable gives your students the chance to practice important phonemic awareness and phonics skills in a fun way.
While I reference spring above, you can use the initial sound puzzles any time of the year, really! I think they’d be great during a rainbow theme or when discussing spring weather. Or just bring them out as part of your other beginning sounds activities.
The free printable rainbow sound cards are also super duper easy to prep. So you can grab your own copy today and have them ready for the kids to use first thing tomorrow. Lots of learning opportunities and low-prep, that’s a win-win.
Related: Free Preschool Printables
Read below for some tips to get the rainbow puzzles ready for your students. You’ll also find a few different ideas for using the cards with kids. And be sure to go to the bottom of this post to request the download link for your own copy!
Rainbow Beginning Sounds
Easy-to-prep and mutli-use, these phonemic awareness puzzles are perfect for preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten students. You can use them during whole group lessons, small group activities, or as part of your literacy center plans.
How to Prep the Initial Sound Puzzles
First, read through this post for tips and ideas. Then request your copy via the form at the bottom. Once you’ve done that, grab a few prepping supplies. Here’s what I use (I may get commissions for purchases made through links in this post):
That’s all you need to get the beginning sounds rainbow cards ready. While you’re gathering supplies, pick up any additional materials you might want, like:
Once you have all of your materials, it’s time to prep the rainbow beginning sounds printable. As I already mentioned, there’s not much to it:
- First, request the download link.
- Next, save the printable to your computer.
- Then open the file in the most up-to-date version of Adobe Reader.
- Print the rainbow picture cards, making multiple copies if desired.
- Cut the cards into puzzles after that.
- Finally, laminate all the pieces.
Now you’re ready to use the rainbow pictures with your students! Note that you can make the cards self-checking by using a different puzzle “pattern” for each of the cards.
How to Use the Rainbow Beginning Sounds Printable
I suggest you start off using them as rainbow sound matching puzzles. Before you jump into that, review how to say a word and isolate the beginning sound. Here are simple steps for this process:
- Say a word out loud. You can start with a short word or maybe one of your students’ names.
- Then say the word slowly, placing special emphasis on the first sound.
- Repeat just the initial sound a couple of times in isolation.
- Explain that’s the first sound in the word.
Once you’ve done this, tell the children what’s next! “Now we’re going to put together rainbow puzzles based on the first sound in each picture.” Model how to do so using one or two beginning sounds puzzles. You can inject some humor into this if you want to – I love using humor to engage the kids. “You’ll have to help make sure I put the puzzles together correctly!”
Then invite the children to work together to match the puzzle pieces. I suggest doing this with a small group first. And start off with just a few of the rainbow beginning sounds puzzles so as to not overwhelm the children. As the kids begin to master the concept, bring more puzzles out to work on. You can then transition the puzzles to your literacy center once you feel your students are ready for that.
Additional Rainbow Beginning Sounds Activities
While playing a matching game with the puzzles is my go-to, that’s not the only way you can use the phonemic awareness printable. Here are a few ideas for switching it up a bit:
- Put together a rainbow sensory bin using your favorite sensory materials. Hide the puzzle pieces in the bin and challenge children to find them before assembling them.
- Pair the rainbow beginning sounds puzzles with magnetic letters (or different alphabet manipulatives). Have the children practice phonics by matching the letters to assembled puzzles.
- Have the students write the corresponding letters for each puzzle. They can write directly on the laminate pieces or on a white board. Or even in a rainbow sensory writing tray!
- Ask the kids to find items around the classroom that begin the same way as the pictures on the rainbow puzzles. See how many they can find!
How would you incorporate the rainbow beginning sounds printable into your plans? Don’t forget to grab your copy at the bottom of this post.
Beginning Sounds Activity Pack
Let Preschool Teacher 101 save you a ton of time with fully-developed, done-for-you early childhood resources. We have lesson plans, digital games, dramatic play packs, classroom management guides, center time songs, and so much more in our shop. Or join The Pack, our membership for preschool and kindergarten teachers, for a steep discount on our products.
Click on the image below to get our Beginning Sounds Activity Pack. It’s available on Google Slides, in printable format, and even in Seesaw. The games are self-checking when playing digitally, and you have the option of using the included audio prompts!
You can also find us on Teachers Pay Teachers.
What’s Included in the Rainbow Initial Sounds Printable
The rainbow beginning sounds printable comes with 14 pages of rainbow puzzles. All of the letters of the alphabet are represented, even those letters with the same sounds (like c and k).
Please note that there are two options for the letter x sound. One has it at the beginning, while the other has it at the end. This is because the traditional sound for the letter x is better represented at the end of words. So you can decide which works best for you and your students.
Here’s a breakdown of the pictures found in the printable:
- alligator, apple
- bacon, bird
- cookies, carrot
- dolphin, dinosaur
- emerald, elephant
- feather, frog
- glasses, gumballs
- hose, hot dog
- insect, igloo
- jellyfish, juggle
- kite, koala
- leaf, lemon
- magnet, mailbox
- narwhal, net
- octopus, octagon
- pretzel, penguin
- queen, quarter
- ruler, rain
- strawberry, sun
- taco, train
- umbrella, upstairs
- volcano, visor
- wagon, waffle
- x-ray, x-ray fish
- fox, six
- yolk, yoyo
- zoo, zucchini
The printable comes with an instruction sheet that outlines the picture names as well. But this way, you get a sneak peek into each of the words you’ll find on the rainbow sound puzzles.
More Rainbow Activities for Kids
If your students love all things rainbow, here are a few more ideas for you:
I think those ideas would be great alongside the rainbow beginning sounds printable!
Free Printable Rainbow Beginning Sounds Cards
The rainbow sound cards are available to members of Fun-A-Day’s free email community. If that’s you, enter your email address in the form below to have the download link sent to your inbox. If you’re not a member yet, you can join us! Just enter your information in the same form to do so. Then you’ll get the beginning sounds printable as a welcome gift.
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