We have been reading BOB Books, and working on sight words as a part of our Kindergarten curriculum. We have practiced in several ways, and some of them have been so much fun that our son keeps asking to practice, even when we aren't working on academics. None of these ideas were my own, but a collection of ideas from everywhere wonderful on the web, and from friends. I just wanted to share those that we are finding most successful with our 5 year old.
First of all, he loves to write anything and everything on whiteboards - so his sight words are no different. We do this a couple of times a week. This is a photo of our new, smaller whiteboards that we scored at Target for 70% off last week!
For the days when we are on the go , we write his words in his notebook, and he tally marks every time he finds one out in the world. This is great to do at the grocery store, in the car (billboards/signs/etc.) and even out at events or parks. We took his list the last time we went to the zoo, and he found them all!
He isn't a huge fan of writing at this stage, so we get some practice in by using a dollar store tray and some salt. He enjoys writing with his finger in the salt, and thinks this is FUN. I will leave the tray out on days we're using it, and often find him writing his name and even sight words from time to time during some "play" time too.
On the days when he moans at the sight of a pencil (o.k., almost every day), we also use letter stamps to practice the words. This is a lot of fun and he loves to use various colors. At some point we'll intentionally use a certain color for vowels, but we aren't quite there yet. We love our stamps!
The uppercase can be found here,
and the lowercase can be found here! :) The printable comes from
Cassie at 3 Dinosaurs and she has a host of other BOB Book printable activities too!
Last week we wrote some thank you cards to friends and family. I wrote the note, and left spaces where his sight words would go. He went back and filled them in. He had quite the feeling of accomplishment, and was proud for his family to get the cards and read his writing. He did use his pencil for this one! ;) We didn't get photos of this activity because we were in a hurry to get the cards to the mailbox!
We found
these light up letter blocks on clearance last year, and he loves to build his sight words and then light them up! They are called
Laser Pegs Letter Blocks Word Play.
Last, but by far his absolute favorite is Sight Word Shootout! This idea originally came from
Carisa at 1+1+1+1=1 (excellent blog & resources). We did ours a bit different though. I write his sight words on paper plates and use painters tape to attach them to the wall. Once he's found his Nerf bullets (all over the house) I will call out a word and he gets to "shoot" it. I like using the plates and painters tape because I can move the plates around and change the order so he doesn't memorize their locations. I have added several to the wall, but we only started with a few.
Yes, he really gets into this "game" and even climbs up on the bed to get his "shot" at times.
**The numbers on the wall don't have anything to do with the sight word shootout game. We just have it there so he can practice counting backwards from 20.
Do you have any fun ideas for practicing sight words?
