Homemade Phonics Game Fail!

Yesterday I decided to make Roo a phonics game, it didn't go quite to plan. 

My thought process was to create a game which teaches something important, something battery free and something we could play together. Great I thought, serious Mum points for me!

I followed the early years guidance of teaching sounds in special sets, the first of which is s, a, t, i, p, n. I created letter cards and 9 images which match the sounds. I went for a simple first draft with the plan of creating a neater laminated one afterwards. 

The game is simple, match the word sounds to the letter. Teaching letter recognition and sounds. At this point I was still basking in my amazing plan and the flurry of Mum points due to me.

The first maybe 3 minutes of playing went really well, she was interested and liked the pictures.

Then is went horribly downhill! Roo likes to be able to do things, she likes to feel smart and get applause. As soon as she realised she wasn't very good at this game the threenager came out in force. 

When I tried to help she kept shouting "don't talk me" and wouldn't let me guide her towards the right answer. She insisted things began with letters they didn't and when I suggested we pack the game away for another day this just brought on another tantrum.

After about 10 minutes of stroppy behaviour I managed to bribe her with chocolate to put the game away for another day. 

But I'm not giving up! I'm going to try again with just one letter and less pictures. I'm hoping starting with S and 4 S pictures and 4 other pictures may be more successful. Hopefully she'll grow into the game but for now I'm at roughly nil points.