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Watch: Vowels and Consonants

An illustration oif a young girl smiling with the letters a,e,i,o,u around her head.

Words are built from letters which are either vowels or consonants.

Vowels are:

a, e, i, o, u.

Consonants are the rest of the letters in the alphabet:

b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, y and z.

The letter y is a bit different, because sometimes it acts as a consonant and sometimes it acts as a vowel.

Knowing how vowels and consonants work together to make words and sounds will help you with your spelling.

Watch this short video to learn more.

An illustration oif a young girl smiling with the letters a,e,i,o,u around her head.

Watch this video to learn about vowels and consonants.

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Activity 1

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Activity 2

An illustration of a young boy smiling with question marks around his head.

Let’s make some alphabet soup!

Imagine you are making alphabet soup.

Have a look at the recipes below. How many vowels and consonants are there in each one?

You can say the answers or write them down.

The first one has been done for you.

  1. a, d, o, w

two vowels ( a, o) two consonants (d, w)

  1. b e i s

  2. e h n z

  3. k r t v

  4. a e i o u

An illustration of a young boy smiling with question marks around his head.
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Activity 3

Let’s find some vowels!

Read the words in the lists below. They all contain a vowel.

Write the words out and circle the vowel.

  • cat
  • dog
  • pin
  • bun
  • pen
  • lip
  • man
  • web
  • hut
  • box
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Activity 4

Let’s sort words with vowels!

Here are the names of some fruits.

They all include at least one vowel. Some include more than one vowel.

  • apple

  • banana

  • grape

  • peach

  • plum

  • strawberry

  • lemon

  • lime

  • pineapple

  • fig

  • melon

  • cherry

  • guava

  • lychee

  • orange

Copy out the table below and write each word in the correct box to show how many vowels it contains.

A row has been done for you. Have fun sorting!

Fruits with one vowelFruits with two vowelsFruits with three or more vowels
plumgrapeorange

Challenge: Why don’t you try to do the same with drinks, animals or different types of transport?

Share your answers with a friend or family member – can they think of some more?

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Karate Cats English game. game

Head to the dojo to become an expert in spelling, punctuation and grammar.

Karate Cats English game
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