The Nuts and Bolts of Constructing Word Fun

A huge part of kindergarten is learning to sound out words and determine if they are real or nonsense words. Making this experience hands on and fun is a key element to making teachable moments memorable. I found these fun Learning Resources Constructing Word set and I knew I had to not only have this educational toy but I had to create something to use with it to make even more powerful in my classroom. Let’s have some fun with the Nuts and Bolts of Constructing Word Fun!

What You Get

First, let me start off my telling you that each set of Learning Resources Constructing Word sets contains enough sets for 6 students. You get 6 sets of all these parts shown below. All the vowels and y are on the green bolt. There are various letters on the other pieces. You should also know that you will not find a j, q, w, x, or z in this set. This isn’t a huge deal, but good to know.

Since I desired for my students to work with this learning resource independently in a structured way, I created two types of activities to guide their learning or guide their activity. Wait until you see how we can use these activities to make learning more powerful below!

The Nuts and Bolts of Creating a Word

Check out this black and white CVC card to be used with the bolt set. Students can use these cards to find the letters they need on the bolts. When they locate their letters, they can add them to the nut to form the word. This is a great way to use the nuts and bolts as a letter recognition review and word building experience. (I am not even mentioning the sensory experience and fine motor skills this activity helps with!)

This version is printer ink friendly, but you should take note that is the harder of the two. You can take this version and color code after printing if you do not want to use color ink. 🙂 Keep reading to see the matching leveled activity.

The Nuts and Bolts of Creating a Word Easier

Next, there is an identical set of CVC cards to use with the bolt set. This set is color rich so the color coded letter matches the bolt color. Some of the letters like h can be found more than one bolt, so that letter is left black to avoid confusion. This is the easier of the two sets since the colors are given.

Students can grab a card and the correct color bolts. They can put the bolts on the nut in the correct order. This allows them to create a word. Once students creates the one word from their card, they can use that base word to create more words in that word family or by changing another letter in that word.

The Nuts and Bolts of Open Ended Activity

Since the activities above are guides to create specific words, an open ended activity would be ideal. Check out these color coded guide cards for the nuts and bolts. First, students select one card and put together their bolts to match the color, as shown below.

Since the Learning Resources Construction Set comes with 6 sets of nuts and bolts, you could also have several of these put together to save time.

Three Ways to Play

Next, choose the wording you want to use. There are matching I Can cards (not shown) and recording sheets for the terms Real Words and Silly Words or Real Words and Nonsense Words. Wouldn’t this make an AWESOME center for Community Helpers or a Morning Tub?

Can The Students Write the Words?

Then, students color code their pattern in the corner of their recording sheet. This tells you what bolts they were working with and essentially what words they could create.

Now, they use that nut and bolts to sound out words to see if they discover a real word or a silly words. When they turn the bolts, they sound out the letters. Lastly, they write their word on either side where it fits best

Here is a glimpse of everything you will get. (Just remember the Learning Resource Word Construction Set is sold separately.)
Where to Grab this?

This bundle contains card sets for CVC sets for short a, short e, short i, short o, and short u. You also get the download for the open ended to create their own Real or Silly words. You can grab this pack here. I purposely priced it LOW because I knew you would have to purchase the nuts and bolts separately. I also included so many sets of words so you could use it for a longer period of time. More bang for the buck. 🙂

You can get more Constructing Word Bolts Sets here including this bundle.

The above link to Learning Resource Construction Set is an Amazon Affiliate link that I receive a small amount of money if you purchase using that link. I created this product because I saw the educational benefit of using this awesome product in a new way. I was not asked to or paid to support Learning Resources or their product in any way. All the feelings and opinions expressed in this article are mine and have not been altered to support another company.