Word Family Flowers

Plant essential literacy skills in kids by growing a bouquet of word family flowers! This crafty activity helps kids learn word families, which develops important skills, such as learning vocabulary, spelling, sound patterns, sight words, and reading.

Learning Goal

Children will identify words that belong to the same word family.

Play in Noggin

Word Family Reunion

What You Need

Paper, construction paper, or cardboard

Markers, pens, crayons, paint, or pencil

Something to create a “flower stem,” including a pencil, straw, marker, paint brush, pipe cleaner, or popsicle stick

Kid-safe scissors

A grown-up’s help!

What’s a Word Family?

Get your child ready to think about word families! You can tell them that a word family is a group of words that share the same ending and have the same sound.

For example: at, cat, hat, and flat are a word family; they have the sound and letter combination -at in them.

See below for more details on word families!

Let's Create!

Invite your child to grow a bouquet of Word Family Flowers with you! Each flower will represent a different word family.

Help your child cut out a small circle from a piece of paper, colored construction paper, or cardboard. Choose a word family (such as -at) and write it in the circle. This will be the center of the flower!

Next, cut out a number of ovals that will become the petals of the flower. Team up with your child to see how many words you can come up with that belong to the word family you chose. To get started, feel free to suggest one or more words to your child.

Write one word (such as bat, rat, cat, hat, mat, sat) on each petal with a marker, pen, crayon or pencil. You can write the word, or your child can give it a try!

If you used white paper or cardboard to make the flower, invite your child to make the petals colorful with crayons, markers, or paint.

Next, tape or glue the word petals around the small circle you cut out earlier for the center of the flower.
Now, using tape, attach a stem to the flower. You can use materials found around your home, like a pencil, straw, marker, paint brush, pipe cleaner, or popsicle stick.
Keep going! Make additional word family flowers in a rainbow of colors. When you are finished, arrange the flowers in a vase to make a Word Family Bouquet!

Parent Tips

Start with one-syllable words with just three letters; when your child feels comfortable, try longer words.
If you’d prefer not to cut out individual petals, you can simply draw the flowers on paper and make a picture of a Word Family Garden.
For an added challenge, prepare the center of a few flowers ahead of time, as well as words on petals for each of the word families. Challenge your child to place each petal with its correct word family. Assemble the flowers, decorate them, and make a beautiful bouquet!

-at (e.g., bat, rat, cat, hat, mat, sat)
-an (e.g., fan, man, pan, can, van, snowman, toucan)
-ar (e.g., star, car, far, bar)
-ow (e.g., cow, bow, wow, chow)
-in (e.g., pin, tin, fin)
-op (e.g., mop, hop, top)
-ug (e.g., bug, rug, hug, mug)
-ash (e.g., cash, flash, sash, splash, trash)
-ake (e.g., cake, rake, lake, bake, snake, snowflake, brake)
-ide (e.g., bride, hide, ride, slide)
-and (e.g., hand, sand, land, band)
-ock (e.g., block, clock, dock, flock, lock, rock, sock, smock)

Fun fact for grown-ups: All words in the same word family will rhyme, but not all rhyming words are in the same word family (e.g., hair, mare; shoe, shampoo).

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