Easy syllable activity :: animal syllable clip cards printable

Need an easy way to teach syllables? You can use this animal syllable clip cards printable with individual children or as part of a syllable literacy center. 

 

 

Animal syllable clip cards printable

 

You can use these animal syllable clip cards to help children understand what syllables are and to begin to recognise them in the words they say and read. 

You can use the cards with individual children or set them out as a literacy center or finger gym.

 

What are syllables?

Syllables are the phonological building blocks of words: the blocks of sound in each word.

Each syllable of a word is a unit of pronunciation: a part of a word with one vowel sound, with or without surrounding consonants.

We can think of them as the beats in a word – and you’ll probably notice that your mouth changes shape as you say each syllable (beat) of a word.

Why do children need to learn about syllables?

Understanding the concept of syllables helps us pronounce words, read, spell, and write. 

A good way to introduce syllables to children is to have them say their name out loud and clap or stamp the beats they hear.

You can use this animal picture card set to develop your child’s understanding of syllables. We’ll count how many syllables each animal name has. 

 

 

How to use these syllable clip cards

You might introduce the concept of syllables at circle time. You can clap or stamp out the beats in words.

Then children can work individually, in pairs, or as part of a literacy center to work with these animal cards. Using the cards is a fun and simple way to practice, and gives you a quick visual check to see that individual children have understood the syllable concept.

These animal clip cards make a great finger gym fine-motor skill center too, as manipulating the pegs, pins, buttons or markers exercises fingers and thumbs too. 

 

Print the syllable card sheets (see how below) and cut out the individual animal cards.

There are eighteen animals included in the pack, all in full colour, with the name of the animal written below the picture on each card.

You might like to laminate the cards for extra durability.

 

Set out the cards along with something your children can use to mark their answer.

:: You might like to offer clothes pegs/pins, so they can clip the peg/pin on the correct number of syllables – great fine motor skills practice too.

:: You might offer buttons or other counters, so your children can cover the correct answer.

:: You might offer wipeable pens, so they can circle their answer (and then you can wipe the cards clean and re-use them another time).

 

The aim with these cards is to give your children practice in saying a word and knowing how many syllables that word is split into. So lion is two syllables, frog is one syllable, elephant is three syllables, and so on. 

They can use the pictures along with the written words to say the name of the animal out loud. How many beats are in the word? They might like to clap along to the word, to help them hear the syllables. 

 

Once they know whether the word has one, two, three or four syllables, they can use their marker to cover the matching number on the card.