Say it like a Turtle/Rabbit Pointers

When teaching my students how to read, I often say "Say it like a turtle" to stretch out sounds in a word.  When I want them to put all the sounds together, I say, "Say it like a rabbit."
For example I would teach,

"Alright, lets look at this word. I see the letters "c" "a" and "t".  Let's sound each of them out like a turtle would because turtles like to be cautious and go real sloooooooow. Say it like a turtle: /c/ /a/ /t/. One more time, /c/ /a/ /t/. Now, this time when we read, we want to put the sounds together fast like a rabbit. Let's read it like a rabbit. Cat!"

I wanted to help them visualize it so I made these super duper cute pointers for cheap.

First you need these items:
*wood cut out of the animals (found these at hobby lobby for 67 cents each)  You could even use paper cut outs/images and laminate them. 
*acrylic paint & brush
*Super glue, (I LOVE Goop. It works so well on all my crafts)
* wooden dowel rods

I painted the dowel rods and let them dry. Then I super glued the rod to the wood cut out.  

So that the glue didn't show, I put a piece of scrapbook paper over the glue & stick while it was still wet.

Let dry according the super glue instructions and then you have cute pointers to use to help your students visualize segmenting and blending words! 

You can be as creative as you want make as many pointers maybe for reading centers or to match themes! I'm might not be that ambitious. :)