[Back]   [Activities]   [List of Words]   [Printable Worksheets]

Word Families - ail, ain, air

The word families ail, ain & air demonstrate the long vowel a sound.  

Free Word Family Activities

1. Draw the word families:  draw a picture of the following word families in action!
   
   • The snail followed the trail.
       
   • The train drove through the rain
      
   • The princess had fair hair
      
2. Create your own word family sentences using the ones above as a model.  Try to create at least one sentence for each family.
    
3. Create a short rhyme using your word families.  This is a good activity to do as a group.  Here are some examples:

   Slowly, slowly crawls the snail
   Slowly, slowly up the trail.

   Chugga chugga goes the train.
   Chugga chugga through the rain.

   The lazy bear had a chair.
   Underneath my front porch stair.
   

4. Other activities:
    
   • 'AIL' and 'AIN' word family:  Combine the RAIL and the TRAIN -- play with a train set.
      
   • 'AIR' word family:  Play musical CHAIRs.
      
5. Use the free printable worksheets provided to reinforce the activities.
    
6. Flash card activities:

   These cards can be used for sentence building with the sentence sequencing activities.

   Print two copies of this worksheet to play "concentration" (the memory game).  Or print the flash card worksheets from a number of word families to play "go fish" or "snap".