Fun Activities for Teaching Contractions

In our everyday speech, we use contractions.  Contractions are a kind of “short cut” in the way we use words to communicate.  Think about it for a bit.  If you were going to tell a friend that you aren’t going to lunch, are you likely to say, “I am not going to lunch” or “I’m not going to lunch”?  Because we use these words so often in our speech, it’s important that we teach students how to use the words in writing.  Teaching contractions can be fun and there are tons of great activities to use to support this concept.

Introducing Contractions

When introducing the idea of contractions, it’s helpful to begin by defining the word “contract”.  “Contract” means to get smaller or shorter.  So, when we are using a contraction, we are making the words “shorter”.  A simple way to explain it is to say that a contraction is “a shorter way to say two words.”  Oh, and that apostrophe– it fills the space of those missing letters.

 Just click the following link to download this freebie Contractions Poster

Contraction Bingo

Games and activities are ideal for teaching contractions. Bingo is always an easy go-to activity for small group instruction. When you download this activity you will receive 5 Bingo game boards and 24 contraction calling cards.

 

The Contraction Bingo! activity can be found in my online Teachers Pay Teachers store.

Contraction Match Game

The Dog Dish Contraction match-up game is great as a literacy center activity. You can easily differentiate the activity by choosing which and how many contraction matches to set out. With this activity, students match the dog bone to the dog dish containing the contraction. This activity includes 80 contraction dog bones and dishes!

The Dog Dish Contractions activity can also be found in my online TpT store.

Write the Contractions

I love the Doggone Contractions activity as it contains a self-checking feature making it ideal for independent centers. It also gives our students practice writing contractions as well. If you laminate the recording sheet, it can be used over and over again! For this activity, students choose a bone and then writes the words and then the contracted form on the sheet. The bone is then turned over and the correct response is shown!  There are 60 contractions in this activity.

The Doggone Contractions activity can be found in my Teachers Pay Teachers store

File Folder Contractions

Now for the file folder activities! These file folder activities are two of the activities contained within our File Folder Phonics Bundle. They can also be downloaded separately.

Assembling File Folder Phonics Contractions #1 activity is pretty simple. Just glue the dog dishes on the file folder leaving (leaving an open area in the middle) and then laminate. Then use an Exacto knife to cut a slit at the top of the dish. The bone slides right in the dish!

The File Folder Phonics activity for Contractions can be found in my online TpT store.

File Folder Contractions activity #2 has the students write the contraction on the bones with a dry erase marker. Once laminated, the file folder activities can be used over and over!

The File Polder Phonics for Contractions can also be found in my TpT store.

If you like file folder activities you may want to check out our File Folder Phonics Bundle. This bundle contains 13 file folder activities for teaching targeted phonics skills including plurals, past tense, possessives, the doubling rule and the FLOSS rule.

The Even More File Folder Phonics Bundle can be found in my TpT store.

I hope you enjoyed the doggone cute activities for teaching contractions!

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Enjoy!