Literacy Stews – A Fun Letter, Sound, Name, and Sight Word Game

Make Literacy FUN and engaging with Literacy Stews™️! It’s a fun, hands-on game to help students develop a variety of literacy skills, including letter identification, beginning sounds/initial sounds, his/her name, sight words, and various concepts of print!

The literacy stews are similar, so once they learn how to play, they should know how to play them all year long! Just swap out the cards, charts, and magnet letters, and you are ready to go! This post contains referral links.

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You will find all of these counting stew items on my Amazon list!

Click HERE to get Literacy Stews for your classroom!

Introduce the new stew during small group time.  Then, place it in a center or station for students to do independently, with a partner, or with a small group.  This is the perfect activity for centers, table time, or as an arrival activity!

It’s a game that can be played all year long because it doesn’t have a theme.  I’m going to put Literacy Stews in my lesson plans at least once a month, but hopefully every other week! It will stay in the library center all year long because there are so many different ways to play!

Here it is in my library center.  The cookie pans with the letter charts and magnet letters on them (they don’t stick together either), magnet spoons, pots, and cards. **At the end of this post, I share where I get all my stew supplies.**

Check out all the different cards and charts Literacy Stews includes!  I can have it out all year long because I can change out so many different pieces to meet the needs of my students.

There are individual letter and sound cards so students can focus on one letter or sound at a time. There are also recipe cards with 4 letters and/or sounds, sorting recipe cards, editable name cards, and sight word cards (yep, editable too!)  Then there are all the charts.  Mix and combine them as you wish to easily differentiate to meet the needs of all your students.

Differentiation Ideas
There are many ways to differentiate literacy stews to meet the needs of your students.  Remember, students don’t have to use the same cards, letter magnets, or charts!
Manipulatives & Charts – use different manipulatives & charts with different students to differentiate

• Use only uppercase letter manipulatives and charts
• Use only lowercase letter manipulatives and charts
• Mix charts and manipulatives (ex: use lowercase letter manipulatives and uppercase letter charts)
• Use sound manipulatives/magnets and/or charts

Literacy Stews – use different stew games with different students to differentiate.

• Letter Stews (individual cards or recipe cards)
• Sound Stews (individual cards or recipe cards)
• Name Stews
• Letter Sort Stews
• Sight Word Stews

These friends both have uppercase letter charts and uppercase letter recipe cards, but have DIFFERENT magnet letters. One friend has uppercase and one friend has lowercase.

We are always asking ourselves the question….. What are students learning? You determine the learning objective or what students are learning by what charts, cards, and magnet letters you use!

Check out the Literacy Stews in Action

Let me show you some of the literacy stews in action! This letter stew is using the individual letter cards, uppercase magnet letters, and uppercase letter chart.  Students only have to focus on one letter at a time using the individual letter cards.
Don’t you just love how the letters stick to the spoon? Just hot glue magnet tape to the spoon.

Lowercase Letter Stew!
This letter stew contains lowercase letter activities (lowercase letter chart, lowercase letter magnets, and lowercase letter individual cards).

Sound Stew!
For this sound stew start with a black and white letter chart, lowercase letters, and individual beginning sound cards.  I like to use the black and white chart because it’s easier for students to see the letters.

Letter Stew uses lowercase letter recipe cards, lowercase letter mat, and uppercase letters.  You can see how this letter stew is at a higher level than the letter stew above because students have to identify the letter and then find the matching uppercase letter, and there are also four letters per card.

Sound Stew
Check out this sound stew using the sound recipe cards! Did you notice the ears on the stew pot?

Letter Chart Doubles as an Answer Key
Use the letter charts as an answer key if you choose! Use the letter chart with the sound icons and letters on the cookie sheet.  Students guess the sound and when they pick the letter, they can check the sound icon to see if they are correct.  Easy!

This friend picked the letter “d,” and he can see there is a donut under it that matches the donut on the card he picked.

Sound Clip Art (two sets included)
Two sets of sound clip art are included to meet the needs of the students in your class
-Set 1 includes food clip art.  For some students the food Clip art might be tricky to identify (ex: asparagus, olives, quesadillas).
-Set 2 uses typical beginning sound Clip art AND it the matching letter cards! To help you differentiate and organize the cards, SET 2 has a small star in the corner. Sorting Letters Stew
Sorting letters helps students notice the characteristics and distinctive features of each letter.  Sorting letter stews makes sorting letters FUN!

You can also do this with the letter stews. Use letter cards and letter charts that have the same case, then use the opposite case magnet letter. OR you can use the double letter chart “Aa” and different case letter cards and letter magnets.

Name Stew
It’s a fun game for students to learn their own name, their friend’s names, as well as letters and sounds.
Use the included blank page OR create a set of stew name cards with this fillable PDF.  Just type the names into a chart, and it autofills all the name cards for you!

Sight Word Stew
Sight word stew is a fun activity for students to learn sight words as well as letters and sounds. Use the included blank page OR create a set stew sight word cards with a fillable PDF.  Just type the words into a chart, and it autofills all the name cards for you! To help organize the cards, each set has a label, and each card is labeled with which set it comes from in the corner.  Place the label on a baggie to keep the cards organized.

Optional Recording Pages

You decide if you want to use the included recording pages with the literacy stews. Many are included to match various literacy stews.

• Tracing letters
• Uppercase
• Lowercase
• Both uppercase and lowercase
• Writing the matching letter
• Beginning sounds
• Writing words (can be used for name stew or sight word stew)

Ways to use Recording Pages in the classroom:

• Copy and print (use like a typical worksheet or recording page)
• Print on colored paper and laminate. Students can use dry erase markers to complete the page(s).
• Print on colored paper and place in a dry erase pocket. Students can use dry erase markers to complete the page(s). **MY FAVORITE**
• Sort recording pages: Print and laminate then use as a sorting board

Laminate the Letter Sort recording pages to use as letter sorting mats!

If you use flexible seating or play games on the floor like we do, place the recording page on clipboards!

Stew Organization

There are tons of labels to help you organize your stews!

Place each stew’s printable in a page protector or gallon baggie. Keep in an iris scrapbook tub or binder and use a literacy stew label for the front.

• Also included are labels for each literacy stew. Tape the individual stew labels to baggies then place the ingredient cards inside
• There are also labels with each letter/sound card set (after the letter z)
• Place the teacher pages, extra charts, and recording pages in a binder
• Stack the cookie trays in the center or when storing them with the magnets ON.  Since the magnets don’t stick together, the letter trays are always ready to go!

Stew Supplies

Here are the Literacy Stew supplies I suggest:

• Cookie Pans >> from the Dollar Tree
• Wooden Spoons >> from Walmart
• Multicolored Magnet Letters (shown below)>> Amazon
• Mini Magnet Letters >> sometimes you can find them in the Target Dollar Spot or at Dollar Tree
• Magnet Tape >> 1 inch (use if you are going to build words) Amazon
• Magnet Tape >> 1/2 inch Amazon
• Pots >> Ikea or Melissa and Doug from Amazon

If you want to see Literacy Stews up close, watch this video I did on how to use them in the classroom!

Want to try Literacy Stews in your classroom? Grab them from my TPT store HERE!

If you LOVE the idea of Literacy Stews, you are going to bananas for Counting Stews! Click HERE or on the photo below to read all about them! Counting stews is a FUN counting game to match all the learning themes you do all year long!

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