Word family fun!

 Word families are groups of words that have a common feature or pattern - they have some of the same combinations of letters in them and a similar sound. For example, at, cat, hat, and fat are a family of words with the "at" sound and letter combination in common.
The 37 most common word families in English (according to Wylie and Durrell) are: ack, ain, ake, ale, all, ame, an, ank, ap, ash, at, ate, aw ay, eat, ell, est, ice, ick, ide, ight, ill, in, ine, ing, ink, ip, it, ock, oke, op, ore, ot, uck ,ug, ump, unk. Many of the nursery rhymes contain common word families. You can use these rhymes to teach these letter combinations (and how they are spelled and spoken), having the students sound them out after memorizing the rhyme. 
(from: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/rhymes/wordfamilies/)
My kindergarten groups have been working on short a word families such as -at and -an. They are learning that if we notice a word family in one word we an read and write many more words! Look at their great work below: