Blending Blocks

I've shared before that a real challenge for me this year in schooling the boys, is E.  He learns like his daddy, and not like me, which as his teacher has been difficult.  A and I learn quickly, memorize rapidly, and learn by just doing it.  E and my DH, they learn by repetition, trying new things, and are generally tactile learners.  I am NOT a tactile learner, I couldn't care less what I had in my hand, as long as it's a pencil or a pen.  DH has to be messing with something in order to hear what you're saying to him, crazy right?

Back to the challenge, he needs the repetition but doesn't like doing the same thing over and over again, see the problem?  A week or so ago I saw a post for blending blocks, and I thought it would be fun to try.  So off to Michaels for some plain wooden 1 inch blocks.  I already had paint and brushes, so no need to purchase those.  I painted each side a different color, red, orange, blue, green, purple, and yellow.  Just to make them pretty and colors attract little boys just like they do butterflies...

After the paint was dry I took a sharpie marker and wrote, first just letters A B C etc and then I started with the blends:
bl, br, cl, cr, dr, fl, fr, gl, gr, pl, pr, sc, sk, sl, sm, sn, sp, st, sw, tr, tw, ch, sh, wh, th, ow, ar, ck, ll, ing, nd, nt, nk, ft, mp, ang, ong, ung, or, er, ir, ur, ai, ay, ee, ea, ie, oa, oe, ou, oy, oi, oo, aw, au, al, all, ew, ue, ull, ph, le, ed

E had so much fun making words and reading.  Yay for another way to get my guy to read well, and it was so easy and fun to make!