Sight Word Activities That Last the Whole School Year!

Teaching sight words can be tricky.  If students are not seeing these words again, and again, and AGAIN, then they will not learn them.  They need to constantly see the word, read it and write it to help them become fluent.  Here are some fun activities I do in my classroom to have my students practice sight words.  Each of these activities can be used multiple times to practice all sight words.  They are used frequently throughout the school year. Some of the activities can also be used for homework! 


Sight Word Worksheets: Students practice each sight word individually by coloring, tracing, writing, and shading the word.

Play-Doh Mats: Children will trace each sight word using a dry erase marker, then they will use play-doh to form the word.

Sight Word Mini-Books: These books are great because you can customize them for your students.  You can choose which words to include in each book and how many sight words you would like to include. Students stamp the sight word, write it, and highlight the word by reading a sentence.  My students like doing these during centers.

Sight Word Build It!: These are great for morning work or homework!  Students will read, color, trace, and write each sight word.

And I love using the centers found below!  These interactive and hands-on sight word centers are my students' favorites!!...I rotate new sight words into the centers throughout the year.

-Fishing For Sight Words: Students will "fish" for sight words by using a magnet (or fishing pole found at Lakeshore Learning) to read sight words on each fish.

-Sight Word Hop: Students will work with a partner to hop on lily pads that contain sight words.

-Pancake Flipping for Sight Words: Students will flip over pancakes that contain sight words. They will read each sight word and record it on their recording sheet.

-Magnetic Sight Words: Students will use magnets to build each sight word.

-Sight Word Detectives: Students will use magnifying glasses (found these cute children's magnifying glasses at Target) to hunt for sight words! They will record the words they find on their recording sheet.  There are 10 hunts (each with 10 sight words).  Each hunt contains a different theme.

I hope I have given you some new ideas to spice up your sight word instruction!  If you are interested in any of these activities you can find them here: Sight Word Activities.

Sight Word Centers!

I am always trying to think of fun ways my students can learn their sight words.  My district requires kindergartners to learn 75 sight words by the end of the year.  This is a large amount of words that requires LOTS of practice!  To help them learn these words, I incorporate many sight word activities throughout my centers each week to prevent sight word instruction from getting boring.  I have found that my students love the following activities that you can find in my TPT store.

Sight Word Hop: Students work with a partner by hopping on sight words that their partner reads.

Pancake Flipping for Sight Words: Students use a spatula or tongs to flip over pancakes that contain sight words.  They place their read pancakes on the cookie sheet.

Magnetic Sight Words: Place each mat on a cookie sheet.  Students read each sight word and build the word using magnets.  

Fishing for Sight Words:  Students will use a toy magnetic fishing rod or you can make your own like the one I made below.  Children will use their fishing pole to "fish" for sight words.  They will read the sight word on each fish they catch and place it on the jar.

100 sight words from Fry's Frequently Used Word List are included for each activity.  If you are interested in getting all four of these centers, check out the bundle here: Sight Word Centers BUNDLE!

I hope these activities add some fun to your sight word instruction!

Launching the Kindergarten Reading Workshop

For the past couple of weeks my students have been learning how to engage in reading workshop.  We began by learning the treasure reading can provide us with and the value there is in learning to read.  On the first day of reading workshop, we read "Reading Makes You Feel Good" by Todd Parr.  I love this book because it is a simple way to teach children how fun reading can really be!  We also made an anchor chart of all the things we see people read.

This week the children have been learning how reading time is URGENT!  Readers cannot waste any time when reading and have to get started right away!  They use every minute to increase their STAMINA!  I like to compare reading urgently to the way firefighters act when there is a fire or when we have a fire drill.  We made the following anchor chart:

This week we also discussed read to self.  I modeled what real reading looks like and what fake reading looks like.  The kids always love when I fake read...I make it really dramatic!  Then, I had a few children model both ways to read so they get a good idea of what real reading looks like!  We made this read to self anchor chart.  We will refer back to it often.

The children also got their "bag of books" this week!  Each child got 5 books that are at their reading level. (They love having their own books to read!) They read these during read to self.  When they learn how to pick "just right books" on their own, then they will choose their own books to read.

I teach a new reading workshop lesson every day to teach my students the expectations of reading workshop and how to silently read on their own.  Throughout the lessons I will also teach them how to engage in 10 other centers.  This will teach my students how to engage in activities independently giving me the ability to work with guided reading groups.  You can check out the lessons here: Launching the Kindergarten Reading Workshop.

I will continue to post how my students are learning to become independent during reading workshop.  I hope to help you create a similar environment in your own classroom!