As an EAL/D teacher I get the privilege of working in the classrooms of some really inspirational teachers. I get to witness some great teaching and learning activities and really see the difference that good quality teaching makes. I also really enjoy the new and different activities that these teachers plan. This year I saw a fantastic teacher using pvc pipes that had been made into phonics phones. The teacher used the phonics phones as part of her well structured phonics lesson and the phonics phones allowed the students to clearly hear the sounds they were making when they were sounding out, blending and segmenting words.
The pvc pipe parts can be purchased cheaply at a hardware store (like Bunnings) and just slide together. The instructions can be found by clicking on the picture above.