Waffle Letters butter drip shows the direction of handwriting

Capital and lowercase letters with start spot butter drip alphabet

Match up the letters in the waffle maker, or trace them out with marker or playdough. The important thing is to always start your letters at the top. The butter dip shows the direction in which your pencil should start to draw these letters. It is a great way to sort the letter too. Which ones curve, which letters slide, and which letters are straight?

This is a fun way to add play with practice in a dramatic way.

C-shaped letters, c, g, d, a, s, all have the same start. © Pure Joy Teaching

Look for this on TPT my Shop

This can be printed out for all kinds of fun play, matching, or tracing.

Pure Joy Teaching 2023

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CVC builder Hot dogs dramatic play easy booklet

Practice building CVC and VC words, quick set-up, and super fun

This booklet-style setup creates an easy and organized way to play and store this fun CVC and VC resource for students and teachers.

The back page is larger and has the barbecue grill image on it. This creates a fun playing surface to lay out all the vowel hotdogs on.

The top half is left open with enough space to attach a small snack-size recloseable bag. This is a great option for storing all the pieces that go with this dramatic games-style teaching resource. Sight word condiments and vowel hotdogs.

The bottom half of this resource can be printed double-sided and attached to the grill with rings or a binding machine. This lays out nicely and removes some of the reversal issues. (

VC included. CVC is very common, and VC is sometimes overlooked. The capital /I/ can be very tricky for some emergent readers. They learn that the capital I, says it’s name when it is on its own, sometimes when they see it next to another letter, like at the beginning of a sentence, it can create some confusion. ( The capital letters A and I, can be used to make words like: In, It, If, An, At.

Sight words – Tricky non-decodable words are included: said, of, the, his, all, is, do, was, are, what, as, have, too.

The sight words are grouped by color to make teaching a little easier. All the yellow mustard words have the letter s that makes the /z/ sound: his, is, was, as, has. ( I call these the sleeping snake words. He falls asleep and snores zzz…. sometimes)

All of the consonant buns should make decodable words. The letter r, is not included as an ending letter. This is not the time to teach bossy r-controlled words. This is purely for early sound-letter decoding.

The letter y, is only in the first position making the correct sound. This is not the time to teach digraphs ay, ey, oy, uy, gym, or eye. All those fun words will come later. As well as words ending with w, aw, ow, ew, should be taught later.

Here is a fun game for short o sounds with /wa/Candyland-style Fruitland.

The CVC Hot Dog builder can be found on my TPT site.

You may also like the CVC sandwich builder or the matching blends. The PB&J’s progress to the digraphs and vowel teams.

Tips for setting up the grill.

  • Print the grill back page on full-sized 8.5×11 paper.
  • Print the hot dogs vowels, single-sided, 2 to a page.
  • Print the Buns Consonants, double-sided, 2 to a page.
  • Use a piece of cardstock or scrap of laminated paper inside of the sandwich bag to make it ridged and strong enough to punch holes through.
Snack-sized reclosable bag attached with a binding machine. Pure Joy Teaching

This booklet was created with the smaller half-page grill, attached on the long side. But it could be set up with a larger full-page-sized grill. Very easy to customize to your classroom needs.

CVC Hot dog word builder. © Pure Joy Teaching 2023
Pure Joy Teaching © Hot Dog CVC VC builder
© Pure Joy Teaching CVC VC word builder hot dogs

Remember to always have Pure Joy Teaching.

Pure Joy Teaching

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