On a day off with a sick baby sleeping on me, I have been brainstorming ideas for how I can revise the Jolly Phonics sound the P1s have now covered. Apparently we have to test them on these by the end of January but, please, if you are in the same boat, lets at least make practising them fun!

So, here are 10 simple ideas I’ve already used. They are all based on multi-sensory, active principles. They will work best the more you can make them pacey, colourful, exciting, memorable (go outside, add music, have a competition, link them into class topic….) Maybe I’m teaching you to suck eggs, but there are a lot of worksheets and bums on seats still going on, even in P1.

Minimal pairs skittles – adult says a word and the children take turns to knock down the skittle with the write sound.

Letter trail – follow the letter cards around the room calling out sounds and doing actions. Repeat giving a word for each letter.

Letter hunt – find the letter around the room to match the sound, word, picture, capital or action, or to complete a word.

Collect a word – collect 3 letters to make a word, from a given word or picture.

People words – pin a letter on each child. One child arranges his peers to make as many ŵords as he can in a minute.

Pebble letters – children write letters on pebbles. Use pebbles to make words.

Buried treasure – hide plastic letters in a tray of sand. Children search for a given letter or selection to make CVC words.

Fishing – as above on water. Use small sieves as fishing nets.

Letter blocks – write letters on unifix cubes, colour coded. Children use to make words and short sentences.

Jigsaw words – write words across the back of old jigsaws, one phoneme on each tile.

Have fun!