As a Kindergarten teacher I LOVE stations. It give my students the opportunity to practice what we have learned and keeps them busy so I can do my Guided Reading groups!
Typically I use a lot of alphabet activities in my centers because as we all know, if they don’t know the letters and sounds they won’t be able to read. But this year – WOW! My students are much more advanced than I am used to. It is like I’m teaching First Grade!!! So I have had to come up with new centers that are at their level, and I made a bunch!
Many of my students are beginning readers, so I made a ton of Sight Word activities to help them practice. Here are some of my favorites!
**NEW** Mystery Sight Words
Sight Word Finger Paint
Take a gallon sized zip-lock bag and add a few squirts of paint and some water. You don’t want to add too much paint or when they trace the letters they won’t see anything! Then press out the air, seal it up tight and tape the edges. Easy!
Fine Motor Sight Words
Students use plastic tweezers to place small puff-balls to make their sight words. Those pincher muscles are extremely important for their fine motor development to help with handwriting. Find the center paper HERE. I also have a longer version with all the Dolch Pre-Primer words HERE!
Kinesthetic Sight Words
Not all students learn the same way, and some need to feel the words to learn them. Add some fine sand into a pencil box and give them an un-sharpened pencil. They can trace the sight words in the sand! And the pencil box keeps the sand neat and tidy!
Build-a-Sight Word with Snap Cubes
Students use connecting cubes to build their sight words. These take a lot of fine motor strength and a good amount of time! Find the center paper HERE!
New for 2019
Watercolor Sight Words
I write the sight words on small sheets of white paper with white crayon. The students use water color paint to find out what the mystery word is! I keep them in a soft pencil pouch (4 – one for each student!) so that I can keep track of who does what. I also write the word really small in pencil so I can double check!
Sight Word Practice
Students use a pencil, crayon, colored pencil, and marker to practice writing one sight word. It is amazing how excited they get to write in something other than pencil. Really they are pretty easy to please! 🙂 Get the sight word center paper freebie HERE!
Sight Word Jenga
This is one of my favorites. I took a used Jenga game (cheap at yard sales and thrift stores!) and wrote sight words on each end (you could even do the sides!). Students have to be able to read the sight word before they can push/pull out the block. Fun! I also have the students write the word they pulled out on a recording sheet! Check this freebie out HERE!
Sight Word Cookies/Pancakes
This is a cute one. Students take turns to use a spatula to bring cookies/pancakes to their plate. But they need to be able to read the word first! I printed the words onto brown construction paper, laminated the whole sheet and cut out the circles. They won’t last forever, but that is OK! Find the sight word paper HERE!
Sight Words with Letter Tiles
This is similar to the Read-Make-Build mat I linked on a previous post. Students use letter tiles to build a sight word and then a wipe-off marker to write it!
Check it out on TPT Here!
Let’s Connect!
I'm not a teacher but a mom and I love these for helping them learn sight words. Thank you for sharing!
this is awesome! thanks for sharing this one, will use these to entertain my 2 boys. My second is still 6 months so this is perfect to teach him.
These ideas are fantastic! Thank you!
Aww I love the baking one! Gonna try that
So many great ideas — can't wait to try a few with my kindergartner! Glad I pinned it!
I just love the sight word Jenga, too clever!
Emma 🙂
I want to say thank you so poo much for your great Ideas and sharing them with us! 🙂
Can't wait to utilize these centers in my classroom
Such clever ideas! The kids must LOVE you!! 🙂 As a former teacher I give you extra credit point for being so creative! I'm going to link to my website http://www.theeducationaltourist.com where I write about traveling with the kids. I would love a shout out !
This would also make a fun hotel activity to keep the little ones engaged and busy! This helps keep up their academic skills while you are off on adventures.
Thanks for sharing your ideas!
Natalie, The Educational Tourist
Wow! What great ideas for literacy centres! I am a new teacher and have a Kindergarten class this fall. I am very much looking forward to using these in my classroom. Thanks for posting 🙂
My first grader loves this!! Awesome!!!
I love all of these so much and will be using some next week in Kindergarten! Thank you!!
Stunning! What incredible thoughts for proficiency focuses! I am another educator and have a Kindergarten class this fall. I am all that much anticipating utilizing these as a part of my classroom. Much obliged concerning posting
Aww I adore the preparing one! Gonna attempt that
Loved teaching kindergarten. You have some clever ideas I plan to use in my classroom next Fall. Keep up the great work, I plan to come back and see more.
I'm pretty sure that every serious study examining the matter has shown that spending time memorizing sight words (vs. time spent on phonics activities) makes children less likely to be good readers.
I would argue that focusing solely on phonics would end up doing the same. I've never advocated for only using memorization. But to be a strong reader children need to have a large word bank of high frequency words, many of which can't be taught using phonics.
Like everything else in education, it is all about balance. You can't be 100% phonics or 100% memorization.
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Love these ideas, just can not pass these centers up. Thanks
Wonderful ideas.
Use slim post it notes on the jenga game to change out the words regularly.