Great Game for Initial Letter Sounds!

The past two days, I showed you spelling activities for students working on short vowels (although they can be adapted to any level).  The game I am going to show you today is for beginning spellers/readers.  The game is called Alphabet Mystery Box and sells for $35 from Lakeshore (♥).  This game is great for students working on learning their letters and/or their initial word sounds!

The game comes with this mystery box, full of items (each one starts with a different letter of the alphabet).  On their turn, each student reaches into the box and selects one item.

Then, the student has to say the items name and try and figure out what letter the name starts with.  Once they figure it out, they get to place the item on the board on top of the correct initial letter.

Here is what the game looks like part of the way through.  We play until we have used up all the items in the mystery box.  This game is great for a variety of reasons.  It works on beginning spelling/reading skills as well as labeling and vocabulary building.  It is also a great game to work on turn taking!  A lot of my students want to shout out the answers to other students or want to keep the mystery box to themselves.  It takes a lot of self restraint for my students (who know the answers) to keep quiet and allow the student whose turn it is to figure it out for him/herself!