While we’re out enjoying some fun in the sun, one of our favorite activities is strawberry picking. To connect learning to that fun activity, we created our Strawberry Long and Short Vowels Freebie.
During the summer, we’re always looking for ways to sneak in learning while we’re having fun.
We love our say and spray activity that helps kids practice their letters, sounds, numbers, and even spelling. We make our print and craft watermelon project and creative writing activity. And we love these fun summer ice cream cvce puzzles that help kids master that tricky long but silent e.
In keeping with our summer theme, we also sneak in some math with these kite addition puzzles after we’re done flying a kite.
Because playing literacy and math games is a great way to get kids learning without realizing they’re learning.
To reinforce vowel sounds, our students need a lot of opportunities to practice since vowel sounds can be so tricky.
To connect summer and strawberry picking with reading, we’ve created these Strawberry Long and Short Vowels puzzles. This fun game encourages kids to sort long and short vowels.
Want even more ways to connect learning with seasons? Be sure to take a look at our Seasons BINGO Bundle. Your students will love it!

Inside You’ll Find:
- 10 pages of puzzles in both color and black and white
- Each page has three different sets of vowel sounds
I find it works best if you print these puzzles on cardstock and laminate it so you can use it year after year. Here’s how I like to keep my Language Arts materials organized throughout the year.

Supply list for the Strawberry Long and Short Vowels:
- paper or card stock
- laminating pouches
- laminator
- Strawberry Long and Short Vowels Printable (scroll down to download!)

Using Strawberry Long and Short Vowels
After you cut out the strawberries and baskets, students will start this summer-themed vowel puzzle activity by placing all of the pieces on a table or the floor. You may want to have students work in small groups the first time they try to complete their puzzles.

To start working on their puzzles, students will pick a basket of long or short vowels.
They will then search for the matching strawberries with the picture. I always encourage my students to say the words out loud as they sort the strawberries.

To save on ink, these puzzles are also offered in black and white. Students can color the pictures themselves as they come up with the answers to the puzzles!

To get this Strawberry Long and Short vowels freebie, use the ‘click here to download’ button at the bottom of this page.
Once they put their strawberry into the corresponding strawberry basket, they can then choose another strawberry and continue matching until all the cards are gone or their time is up.
If you have younger students or students struggling with this concept that might be overwhelmed with all the pieces at one time, you can differentiate this activity and give them only a few strawberries at a time. Or you can give them only short a and long a strawberries so they can hear the difference.
Once they master the vowel sounds you gave them, you can slowly add in more pieces.
To challenge your students, they can sort the strawberries and then write sentences with the words they sorted or they can write a story using as many of the words on the strawberries as they can. They can write a story only using the long vowel words or write a story using only the short vowel words.
Your students can build words all year long with our Word Building Mega Bundle. It has 12 themed word building activities.
Want More Literacy Ideas?
If you want to implement literacy across your classroom with all the stations and centers and activities created for you be sure to check out our Ice Cream Literacy and Math Centers. With over 50 printables this will make planning your literacy centers so much easier.
Download Your Strawberry Long and Short Vowels Printable Below!
Click the button below to download. You will immediately be redirected to the freebie.

Have lots of fun with strawberries as you practice sorting these Strawberry Long and Short Vowels.
I’ve tried several times and it won’t let me download this strawberry long vowel freebie?