What’s In the House? An Early Reading Activity

Target Skills for What’s in the House? An early reading activity:

• Oral Motor (optional)
• Fine Motor Control
• Language Development, Categories
• Pre-Reading Skills
• Visual Memory

Materials for What’s in the House? An early reading activity:

• Paper
• BLO pens  (optional; works on oral motor development.)
• Markers
• Scissors
• Glue
• Stencils

You may want to prepare the pictures that go in the doors in one sitting and then make the house with the doors another time, depending on the attention span of the children doing the project.

• Use the stencils and blow pens to make the pictures. If you don’t have blow pens color in with markers. However, using the blow pens helps develop oral motor skills and breath support which are important for speech goals and stamina.
• Allow the pictures time to dry (the blow pens dry quickly) and cut out the pictures.
• Place the pictures on the paper that will be the house and draw dashed lines where the doors should go. Have the child trace the lines that you made to outline the doors.
• Paint the doors different colors. Allow time for the house with doors time to dry.

• Cut along the lines so that the doors open. This is a job for an adult unless the child has great scissors skills.
• Glue the outside edges of the paper with the doors onto another piece of paper.
• Glue the pictures inside the doors.
• Now you have a category and language game!
• Give directions such as: Find the letter that egg begins with. Find something that begins with “f”. Find an animal. Find something blue. Find something you see in the sky. Find something that would be in water., etc.
• You can also make this a memory game by making 2 of each picture and have them find matching pictures.

• Reading Rockets has 25 Activities for Reading and Writing Fun.
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• Check out our DIY Alphabet Game; it is a great beginning turn-taking game for kids, as well as a fun way to help children who are struggling to learn the letters of the alphabet.