Minimal pairs hammering

Mini Me loves his tool bench set and often wanders around with his power tools in hand, asking what he can fix.  One day, I put him to work doing some hammering. 


I wrote minimal pairs (words like "leg" and "log" that have only one sound different) on the bottom of an egg carton.  Armed with his hammer and some of Daddy's golf tees, he was ready. 

First, I told him the word and he had to search for it, then hammer it.  After we did about half, I had him choose a word and read it to me.  When he got all the sounds correct and read the word, I let him hammer. 

We do this almost every time we empty an egg carton.  Yay for upcycling!
I also don't really know squat about teaching reading other than what I vaguely remember from the semester I taught bilingual kindergarten.  I don't know if jumping to reading CVC words is the right thing to do before practicing sight words, but it works for us.  

I saw this idea somewhere out there at some time in the past... I didn't Pin it, therefore I don't remember it.  If the idea was yours, let me know so that I can link back and credit you!