Winter is such an amazing season! From all of the holidays to wanting to play in the snow, we can’t get enough of the winter weather.
We plan all of the things we want to do once the snow starts to fall. But if we live where it doesn’t snow, then we talk about all the icy activities we’d want to do on a snow-filled day.
We make cute Winter Tree Crafts that are an art project and snack all in one. Students explore animal adaptations with our Polar Bear Blubber science experiment. And the giggles are contagious with our Winter Bingo game.
You can play bingo games all year long with our Holiday Bingo Bundle.
Because finding exciting activities around a seasonal theme is a great way to get kids learning without realizing they’re learning.
So to connect the winter weather with literacy, we’ve created this Snowman Middle Sound Match-up. Students can practice their medial phonemes in an enjoyable hands-on way!
Would you like more was to implement the winter theme across your curriculum? Be sure to take a look at our Winter Learning Activities.

Snowman Middle Sound Match-Up
As our littlest learners are developing their early literacy skills, the middle vowel sound can be difficult to distinguish. When they can say and hear the vowel, it will start to help them to discriminate the vowel sound within the word.
This snowman resource is an engaging way to help our early readers build up their phonological awareness. As they are able to focus on one part of the word, they are then able to isolate the vowel sound.
This Snowman Middle Sound Match-Up is perfect for Preschool, Kindergarten, and First Grade classrooms.
It works with literacy stations, independent work, or in small review groups. Depending on your students’ abilities, this can be used as a review or as a challenge.
Students can build up their word dissection and phonics with these Phoneme Segmentation activities.
Inside You’ll Find:
- 4 sheets with the snowman head covering each vowel sound (short vowels and long vowels)
- 10 sheets of snowballs, each with 6 different pictures.
- This printable also comes in black and white to save on ink, so it has a total of 28 pages.
Getting the Snowman Middle Sound Match-Up Ready
This resource is easy to prep. After you purchase the match-up and download it, you’ll print it (either in color or black and white) and cut using a paper trimmer. Place all of your pieces into a plastic container. I find it easier to use plastic pencil cases for storing centers like these. They don’t take up a lot of space and keeps everything in one place.
I keep my Language Arts materials organized this way throughout the year.
I recommend printing these on cardstock and laminate them before you cut them out so they can be easily used year after year.
Using the Snowman Middle Sound Match-Up
Students will start the Snowman Middle Sound Match-up by choosing a snowman head with a vowel on it. I encourage my students to say the sound out loud. This student chose the snowman head with the “long i” sound.
They will then sort through all of the snowball pieces with pictures looking for the ones have the “long i” sound in them. You may want to have students work in small groups the first time they try to complete this activity.
Once our emerging readers have built the snowman with the snowballs representing the corresponding sounds, they can choose a new vowel sound and start again.
This printable can also be completed by having all the snowman heads laid out on the floor or a table. Your students can then sort through all of the snowballs and place each with the correct snowman head.
If you have younger learners or students who may need extra practice or review, you can differentiate this activity. Provide them with two of the snowman heads and the corresponding snowballs at one time. Or make it simpler and offer them vowel sounds they are more familiar with.
As a challenge, they can:
- sort long vowel from the short vowel with the same letter (short i vs. long i sounds)
- sort all short vowel sounds from long vowel sounds
- sort short e from short i sound (always a hard one for kids to hear)
- sound out and write the words they sorted
- write sentences or a story using the words they sorted
Once your students have mastered these, you can gradually add in more snowmen heads and more snowballs.
While working in groups or on their own, your students will be having a snowball of a good time showing off their mastery of middle sounds!
Download this Snowman Middle Sound Match-Up Now!
Are you ready to implement this in your classroom or home?
Get it here on A Dab of Glue Will Do
Get it here in our Teachers Pay Teachers Store
Your students can learn and review middle sounds throughout the year with our Middle Sound Mega Bundle. It has 12 themed middle sound activities!
Have fun in your classroom and at home with this Snowman Middle Sound Match-Up Printable.
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