Beginning Sounds with Forest Creatures — Letter M

Which forest creatures begin with M? On this Kindergarten worksheet the child says each picture and keeps the ones that start with M's sound — moose and mouse. Sounding out the start of moose and deciding whether it matches the letter M is letter-sound work, the bedrock of reading. The scene is full of a fox, a deer and a hedgehog, so there are plenty of first sounds to compare against M.

Matching a sound to its letter is what eventually lets a child decode words, and it starts with beginning sounds like M's. This sheet has the child hear the opening of each picture — moose and the rest of the forest creatures — and connect it to M. A scene of a fox, a deer and a hedgehog offers many first sounds, so the sound-letter link gets rehearsed across a rich mix of words rather than drilled one at a time.

Once a child can pick the M sound out of a word like moose, that same careful listening works everywhere. When this sheet feels easy, move on to the A-sound pictures in forest creatures, or the B-sound pictures in forest creatures. Every beginning-sounds worksheet and the full forest creatures set are free to print or play online for kindergarten, and each first sound a child names makes the next letter that little bit quicker to catch.