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.

Teaching Foundational Skills with Play-Doh Mats!

Play-doh mats are great for tactile learning!  I use them often in my kindergarten classroom and my students love them!  They are great to use for centers or when you want to keep your kiddos busy while you are doing beginning of the year assessments.  They are also great for RTI!

In the beginning of the year I use these letter/sound play-doh mats for my students to practice letter identification.  

I also use these number identification play-doh mats.  I like how they include writing the number and number word.  Kids also practice counting by using the ten frame.

As my students learn their sight words, I have them use these sight word play-doh mats (Fry Lists 1-100 and 101 -200 are available!)

As the kids learn addition and subtraction I use the below play-doh mats to practice these skills.  You can also place the mat in a dry erase pocket.  

If you would like to take a look at all the play-doh mats in my store check out my "Play-Doh Mats: The Bundle."  There are 8 play-doh mat products that you can use throughout the year to practice skills that include:

Letter/Sound Identification

Number Identification (1-20)

Kindergarten Sight Words (Fry List 1 - 100)

First Grade Sight Words (Fry List 101 - 200)

CVC Short Vowels

Addition and Subtraction

CVCE (Long Vowels)

Digraphs

Shapes (FREEBIE)

Here is a FREEBIE for your students to enjoy: Shape Play-Doh Mats.

Kindergarten Addition!

We have been working on our addition skills!  There are many fun partner activities that I have had my students do to help strengthen their addition skills and increase their fluency.  Here are some of the activities we have done:

Addition Plates: I got these from the dollar store.  They are a great way to help students visualize addition and to have them use manipulatives to solve.  Children take turns rolling a die. They place a set of cubes for each number in the two smaller portions on the plate.  Their partner writes the number sentence.  The children solve the problem by placing both sets of cubes in the large part of the plate.

Addition Play-Doh Mats: This is great for a center or RTI!  Have children use play-doh to complete each addition mat.  You can also place each mat in a dry erase sleeve.  In the picture above, I was working with a student for RTI.  These mats help children visualize addition and solve problems on their own.  You can find these in my store: Addition and Subtraction Play-Doh Mats

Making 10: Children work with a partner and use ten frames to find out how many more they need to make 10.  They use a dry erase board to write number sentences.

Other addition activities I used came from Miss Ricca's blog.  She has many great and FREE activities that you can find here: Miss Ricca's Addition Activities .

I hope these activities help add to your addition learning in your classroom!

Building Number Sense with Play-Doh Mats!

My students LOVE play-doh!  Whenever they are using it, they are very engaged.  Working with play-doh also helps develop my students' fine motor skills.  I made number play-doh mats to build my students' number sense and increase their number recognition.  

I like these mats because they have the children work on writing the number with a dry erase marker and creating the number with play-doh.  

The children also have to show the number in a ten frame.  Each mat provides them with a lot of number practice!  If you would like to use these mats, you can find them here: Numbers 0-20 Play-Doh Mats.

Name Activity

Beginning of kindergarten calls for getting to know you games and of course name spelling activities!  I created play-doh mats for each of my students that contained their name template.  Each child used play-doh to make their name.  I showed them how to roll the play-doh like a snake to make it easier to form. 

When finished, I had each of my students show their creations to the class and shared their name.  This turned out to be a fun get to know you activity as well as practice for learning how to spell our own names!