{"id":4024,"date":"2026-07-24T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/funwithfirsties.com\/?p=4024"},"modified":"2026-09-14T19:49:32","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T19:49:32","slug":"make-ufli-fun-engaging-with-heart-word-practice-activities-you-can-use-all-year-long","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lsdesignssites5.techsurgeons.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/24\/make-ufli-fun-engaging-with-heart-word-practice-activities-you-can-use-all-year-long\/","title":{"rendered":"Make UFLI Fun & Engaging With Heart Word Practice Activities You Can Use ALL YEAR LONG!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Does UFLI feel boring & tedious? I\u2019m all for the Science of Reading but not when it means sitting through long, dull lessons while staring at the same old screen and doing the same old blending board activities day after day. BOR.RING.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But boring no more! I have 6 creative and FUN activities to share with you\u2014including a FREEBIE \ud83d\ude09\u2014to help spice up your UFLI routine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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These make the perfect extension activities after direct instruction, literacy center activities, easy sub plans, or early finisher time-fillers. You can also use them with ANY WORDS, not just UFLI heart words. Think: sight word practice, themed vocabulary, science terms, or fun with seasonal words!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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First up is a word work favourite–a \ud83d\uddd1\ufe0fTrash or Treasure\ud83e\ude8e version of sorting real and nonsense words. I label two buckets as “trash” and “treasure,” and had a third larger bucket at the center which I filled with words written on crumpled pieces of paper (I usually have about 15 sight\/heart words and 15 nonsense words written for students to select, read, sort, and then record). They of course would only record 10 real words and 10 nonsense words, but they had fun sorting them all!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I recently found a sparkly treasure chest at <\/em>Michaels so now I have them sort the real words into the treasure chest…it’s the little things <\/em>\ud83e\ude8e\u2728<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is another primary school favourite–color resist word reveal. We sometimes use white crayons but we actually have found that our white pencil crayons work really well with water based markers. No matter what you choose, kiddos will have a blast as they practice write and reveal their words in the magic crystal balls \ud83e\ude84\ud83d\udd2e\u2728<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This was always one of the most popular activities in my first grade classroom; DIY word search! I especially love the opportunity for engaging collaboration and co-learning. They ask for this one over and over again, and we tend to bring it out for use with holiday and seasonal terms \ud83c\udf83\ud83e\udd83\ud83c\udf84\ud83e\udea9\ud83d\udc98\ud83c\udf40\ud83d\udc30<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This one is for your reluctant writers and your doodlers! I allow my kiddos to spend as much time as they want decorating their 10 words in as much detail as they like…if it gets them looking at, thinking about, and “playing” with letters and words, I’m a happy teacher and they’re happy kids! \ud83c\udfa8\ud83d\udd8c\ufe0f\ud83d\uddbc\ufe0f<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Depending on what we’re focusing on or their skill level, we will sometimes stick to repeating just 1-5 specific words for extra practice and reinforcement. They love the challenge of creating a different work of art in each frame, even if the word is the same! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A simple but effective and FUN activity…especially around Halloween \ud83d\udc7b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kids love to challenge each other to see who can write the tiniest. Sometimes I’ll even have a little basket of magnifying glasses available at the table to assist them in getting as tiny as possible…talk about sneaky fine motor practice MWAHAHA! \ud83d\udc79\ud83c\udf83<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This last one is your FREEBIE! It’s one we use frequently at our reading center (along with a clipboard) or after reading a chapter together from our class set of read alouds. No matter when you use it, students have fun transforming into little detectives \ud83d\udd75\ufe0f\ud83d\udd0d and spotting 3-, 4-, and 5-or-more-letter words in a text. In the picture above, my friend, Ms. Michel, had her students use their current library book choices to complete the hunt!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can keep it open-ended and have students record any corresponding words, OR you can specify what they’re looking for (e.g. “and” for the 3 letter word section, “from” for the 4 letter word section, and “little” for the 5+ letter word section). Grab it HERE!<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If you want even more NO PREP activities (over 40 <\/strong>\ud83d\ude2e) that you can use and reuse all year long with ANY WORD (not just heart words!), check out the full resource HERE!<\/strong><\/a> Trust me, your students will appreciate the variety and YOU will enjoy the additional resources to always have on hand!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Want to save any of these ideas for later? Pick & pin \ud83d\udccc\ud83d\udc47<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If UFLI feels long, tedious, and repetitive, these activities are for you! Your students will LOVE practicing their skills & exploring heart words.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,24],"tags":[31,169,178,179],"class_list":["post-4024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-freebies","category-literacy","tag-freebie","tag-literacy-centers","tag-no-prep","tag-ufli"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lsdesignssites5.techsurgeons.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lsdesignssites5.techsurgeons.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lsdesignssites5.techsurgeons.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lsdesignssites5.techsurgeons.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lsdesignssites5.techsurgeons.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4024"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lsdesignssites5.techsurgeons.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4230,"href":"https:\/\/lsdesignssites5.techsurgeons.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4024\/revisions\/4230"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lsdesignssites5.techsurgeons.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lsdesignssites5.techsurgeons.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lsdesignssites5.techsurgeons.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lsdesignssites5.techsurgeons.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}