6 Fun Vowel Teams Games Readers Love

Games and activities bring fun to the classroom! Students are always more engaged when we can play a game to learn a concept. There are many easy activities and games you can do in your classroom that are low prep and engaging to have your students practice with vowel teams! Today, we are sharing some vowel teams games you can do in your classroom that are low-prep, effective, and FUN for students!

What is a Vowel Team?

A vowel team is when two vowels work together to make a sound. They can make one sound or more than one sound. The vowel team “ai” makes one sound whereas the vowe team “ea” can make three different sounds in words. The vowel team “ie” makes three sounds, too.

Vowel Teams can be found at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of words. Some examples of words with vowel teams are: eat, soap, train, ray, tree, and sound.

Vowel Teams can be tricky for kids because there are many of them and they can make more than one sound. This can be hard to remember! We need to explicitly teach them the different vowel teams and provide many opportunities for our students to practice them. You can do this through decodable passages and decodable books, as well as vowel teams games!

6 Vowel Team Games for Readers

Here are some easy vowel teams games you can do in your classroom to give your kids more exposure to and practice with vowel teams!    

• Vowel Team Scavenger Hunt– A scavenger hunt is a great way to engage your students! Write words with vowel teams on index cards or post it notes. Secretly hide them around your classroom. Have your students go on a vowel team scavenger hunt as they walk around the room, write down, and read all the words with vowel teams you hid around the room! You could also include some words that are not vowel teams to make sure your students are paying attention to them.

• Vowel Team Bingo– Everyone always loves playing bingo! I have talked here before about playing syllable bingo, but you can also easily change it up simply by changing the phonics rule. Have students create their own bingo board from a set of vowel teams you provide. The teacher calls out a word, and students mark the corresponding vowel team on their board. Then, as you play, you can have them get a bingo in different ways (diagonally, vertically, horizontally, picture frame, or blackout).

• Vowel Team 4 Corners– This vowel teams game gets students moving while practicing vowel teams. Prep the game by writing a different vowel team in each corner of the room (ai, ee, oa, ea, etc.). Next, call out a word that has any of the 4 vowel teams. Students will move to the corner with the vowel team they hear in the word. Example words are: rain, boat, team, seed, etc.

• Vowel Team Hop- Use sidewalk chalk or masking tape to create a grid of vowel teams on the floor. Call out a word, and students must hop to the square containing the vowel team they heard. You could also have your students try to generate a word that has the sound the vowel team makes.

• Vowel Team Centers– My vowel team centers have many different games and activities to familiarize your students with vowel teams. There are games and puzzles that will engage your students and give them practice with identifying words with vowel teams. They will also practice writing words with vowel teams. Grab a FREE vowel team center in this set of 9 free literacy stations!

• Vowel Team Word Swap– This is a simple partner vowel teams game that helps students read multiple words with the same pattern. To prepare, write vowel team words on index cards (or sticky notes). For example: rain, sail, mail, boat, road, team. Next, give each student one card. Students will walk around the room reading their word to a partner. After reading, they swap cards and find a new partner. Continue for several rounds. At the end, you can conclude by having students form large huddles with their matching vowel team.

If you are looking for more resources to support your phonics instruction for vowel teams, check out these resources that teachers are loving and are effective with readers!

Do you have any favorite low-prep vowel teams games you use in your classroom? I’d love to hear about them in the comments!