Rhyming worksheets can teach students to create words within word families on their own. The worksheets can be easily made by drawing a circle in the middle of a sheet of paper and writing a particular word family inside. Draw six smaller circles around the center circle and connect each of them to the center circle with a straight line. Leave these circles blank because this is where the rhyming words will be written. For example, if the students were given a worksheet with "-ar" written in the center circle, they could fill in the remaining circles with the words bar, car, jar, far, tar and star.
Because many nursery rhymes contain common word families, they can be a fun way to help first-graders learn. For example, the lines of the nursery rhyme "Jack and Jill" end with words in the "-ill" family (Jill, hill) and "-own" family (down, crown). Students can learn to recognize, speak and spell these word families by memorizing the rhymes. Focus on one word family per week by allowing students to learn and recite a variety of different nursery rhymes.
Odd One Out worksheets include a series of pictures that correspond with a certain word family, and one of the pictures does not belong. This exercise can teach students to recognize word families based on seeing them as pictures and in real life instead of just written as words on a page. For example, one sheet may depict a man, can, fan, pan and a bee. The student would cross out the picture of the bee because it does not belong to the "-an" word family like the rest of the pictures on the page.
Word family flowers are much like rhyming worksheets because students will be working with rhyming words within a word family. However, these flowers incorporate arts and crafts and may be more fun for students. On a large piece of poster board, draw a stem and middle circle to a flower. Cut that out and use the excess poster boar to trace petals, which you will also cut out. Write one of the word families in the center circle of the flower and allow students to write a word that belongs in the word family on their petal pieces and attach it to the flower. They can also illustrate the word that they wrote for added practice.