Paint Chip Ideas #5–Beginning & Ending Sounds and Substitution

So, one last idea for your language arts lessons regarding paint chips. Begin with a Valspar triple paint chip from Lowes.

Turn the chip vertically with the square on the left side to create beginning sound chips. Now write word families or other word endings on the paint chip and simply cut apart on the white lines. If you really want to get fancy with all the paint chip ideas, use a Cricut to cut out pretty letters. Finally, use these to teach beginning sounds. My students simply use a dry erase marker and write in the square the sound they hear right on top of my kidney table. I use Clorox wipes to erase when we are all finished. You could also place these on top of a small white board or create tag board paper strips to use behind the square.

    

I also use this idea to create ending sound chips. Just flip the Valspar paint chip vertically so the punched out squares are on the right side this time as shown below.

Using these ideas, I can also teach my students how to substitute letter sounds at the beginning or ending of a word. For example, the picture above “hi__” can be written as “him.” Once the student hears the /m/ sound, I can ask him to substitute the /m/ sound and make a new word using the /s/ sound, “his.” Substituting beginning and ending sounds becomes easier for the child using this method and they love choosing the colorful paint chips each time.

Terena

If you have comments or other great ideas regarding paint chips, I’d love to hear from you!

Paint Chip Ideas #3–Mini Flips

Using Mini Paint Chip Flip Charts

To make these great and super easy mini flip charts, get to Lowes paint department. Each chart has approximately 26 mini paint chips in multiple colors perfectly bound on a spiral.

I love to use these mini flip charts during whole class reviews, small group reinforcement, and in literacy centers. I use them to match upper and lowercase letters, introducing sight words as the year progresses, CVC words concentrating on specific vowels, reading color words, word families, and many other ways.

    

For Upper & Lowercase Letter Matching, write the matching letters on the same color paint chip. After writing all the letters A to Z, simply cut in the middle of each card. Students learn when the paint chip color is the same, the letters match (like the right hand picture above).

      

For Sight Word Practice, write sight words as you introduce them throughout the year. Review as a whole or small group and then place them in a literacy center for extra practice.

    

Students love these little flip books to learn to read and spell color words.

    

As for Word Families, these work out beautifully as FREE flip charts! Students love to practice with partners. You can make two word families on each booklet. On the first few paint chips write only the beginning sound of the word family you choose. After writing all the beginning sounds, on the next paint chip write only the word family chunk (such as “it” above).

It’s cheap, easy, and fun for your students! Happy flipping!

Please leave comments if you have other great ideas on how to use paint chips in your classroom.