Third-graders, like many elementary school children, enjoy coloring activities. Teachers should make a coloring worksheet with a table of various words that have short and long vowel sounds -- such as rose, only, hat, sky, coat, apple, cup, try, deer, bean, free, tea and other similar words. Assign a specific color to the different vowel sounds. For example, ask them to color "long a" sounds with a red crayon, "short i" sounds with a brown crayon, "short u" sounds with a blue crayon, "long o" sounds with a purple crayon and so forth. Third-graders will enjoy learning their vowels this way because it is interactive and forces them to use critical thinking skills.
You can do this activity with short or long vowels. Create a worksheet with a list of 20 or 30 words which have short or long vowels and mix up the order of the letters. Add an extra letter to the word to challenge students even more. Third-graders must take away the letter that doesn't belong to figure out what the original word is. For example: "ytame" is tame and "hgoat" is goat. This activity is a puzzle, which third-graders should enjoy trying to solve.
This is another activity that will make third-graders think, and it's an easy way for them to learn vowels. Create a worksheet with 10 words, and have them match the different vowel sounds. For example: ask students to identify what has a "short a" sound. Is it "after" or "page?" Students should be allowed to say the words out loud to help them identify which words have short vowels and which do not. This can also be a group activity that two or three students can work on together.
In the third grade, students have to learn vowel diphthongs -- also known as gliding vowels, which are two vowel sounds that are connected into a single, unbroken syllable. Common vowel diphthongs include au (example: haul), aw (example: saw), oi (example: soil), ou (example: out) and oy (example: boy). A fun way for third-grade students to learn diphthong sentences is through fill-in-the-blank sentences. You supply the first letter or the last letter of the word, but the third-graders have to use their intellect to figure out what the word is. For example: "If you leave the milk _ _t, it will sp _ _l."