Get Ready for Kindergarten, First Grade, and Second Grade with Sight Word Activities

0:04 Well, hey there I want to start out today With the scripture I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me Philippians 413 That was my scripture yesterday morning and it just let me know that no matter what's going on in my life or in your life You can do all things through Christ He will strengthen you. Well, listen, hey friends and welcome to the education connection podcast I'm Robin Wilson and I'm here to help teachers, parents, homeschooler, parents make learning fun, engaging and effective. Whether in the classroom, teaching at home or tutoring, I've got practical strategies and resources to support you. But before we jump into today's episode, I am so excited to share with you, I recently teamed up with the education Podcast Network. This means you'll soon hear a brand new bumper featuring the network the next time you tune in. I'm so thrilled to be a part of this amazing group of educators and content creators and I can't wait for what's ahead. So the Education Podcast Network is a group of educators who also have podcasts and they love to share. the things they know and they love to share with other educators the things that their guests know to the world

1:35 and just share that experience with everyone involved and so I have been I have been invited and I teamed up with them and I'm so excited to be with them. So I just wanted to explain that a little bit. Now let's dive into today's topic. So this is a series that I'm doing about getting ready for the next year and getting ready for kindergarten or getting ready for first grade or getting ready for second grade. There's always a little bit of. I don't know if panic is the right word but if you have a little one going you're just wanting to make sure that they have all the things that they need to go into that new year and it's spring and you might think it's a little bit early but this just gives you a little head heads up and a little head time to get going to have them ready because I don't know about you but summer starts in June. You're swimming, you're going to the park, you're playing with friends, the kids are going to camp, and this gives you a bumper, a little head space to get started to doing these things and then you can continue them throughout the summer.

2:50 So one of the key things you need for kindergarten, first grade, and second grade is those tricky, tricky sight words. Some people call them tricky words. Some people call them sight words. There's several ways that they are referred to but these are the words that actually you can't sound out. You have to just know them. Now some of them you can sound out sort of like the word come, c -o -m -e. A lot of times the kids want to add that E to the end and make it say comb and then you just correct that to where they learn that that is come and the same with the word some.

3:31 But some of these words can be sounded out but a lot of these cannot most of them cannot be sounded out. So if you've ever tried to get a child to memorize sight words by drilling the flashcards you know it can get boring. fast and so that is one way you can do it you can get the flash cards you can get the little index cards and put the sight words on there and just do the flash cards and the kids just need to learn them but there really is a better way and it's always if you can make it into a game in a game that you play kids start having fun and they don't even know they're learning So learning sight words doesn't have to be dull. In fact the more interactive and hands -on the activity the better kids will remember them. Well before we go into some of the activities you might think where can I find the sight words or are you going to give me the sight words? I actually do have a list of sight words. I believe it is on my tbt store, but it's quicker and maybe easier for you just to do the search You can find free sight word list online in many places and to get started This is what you're going to search for fries sight words and that's spelled fry apostrophe s sight words or You might also like to use Dulch and that is spelled D as in dog, O -L -C -H, Dulch sight words. You can use both

5:06 or you can use either either one of them. I've actually used fries more than I have the Dulch. They have a lot of the same words. They're just in different order mixed around a little bit. The Freisite words go all the way up to a thousand words and so as the years go I would recommend 100 words per year except for kindergarten. So in kindergarten focus on the first 25 words. and then for first grade continue with those 25 and expand up to the first 100 words. When you get to second grade you'll want to do the second 100 words and third grade third 100 words and then hopefully by then they will have enough of the reading skills and the reading that they will be doing on their own time and in the class that they will be able to pick up on the sight words beyond that. But if not, you can approach it in that manner. Here are a few of my favorite sight word activities. So this is so fun. Just grab you some chalk and take it outside. Write sight words in a hopscotch pattern and have kids jump from word to word saying each one loud.

6:26 Now I know where I live it's still a little cool outside and sometimes those temperatures drop here in Indiana and it's just too cold to go outside right now. Look in your house for those tiles or if you have carpet maybe you want to get some painter's tape that comes up really easily and put that down in the house and you can play it inside if you have a place to play inside. But you're going to write the sight words in a hopscotch pattern and have kids jump from word to word saying each one aloud. And no worries if you're inside just grab your index cards and write them on there. Just be careful when they jump on the sight words that they're jumping on the side of it because you would not want them to slip and fall hitting that sight word index card just right could take you down. I want to say I might know that from experience actually in the classroom. So the next thing that you can do is flashlight word hunt. So write sight words on sticky notes and place them around a dimly lit room. Give your child a flashlight and call out a word. They have to shine the light on the correct word and read it out loud. So that's a lot of fun. The next one I want to talk about is Plato sight words so strengthen your fine motor skills while learning. Kids can shape

7:57 Plato into letters to spell sight words and if that is difficult for them maybe you can shape them and they can read them but you maybe can shape them together working together they can do one letter you can do another and then they can read the words that you put in Plato. Water painting this is fun outside again. It needs to be a little warm but on the sidewalk if you use Sponges or even paint brushes on this sidewalk you can paint with water and paint the side work side sight words in this sidewalk excuse me that's a tongue twister sight words on the sidewalk or maybe on the fence or the side of a barn or something that you have sight word fishing write the sight words on paper fish or I've actually just put these on index cards attach paper clips and let the kids fish for words using a Magnetic fishing rod they read the word aloud and when they catch one they get to say the word and maybe they get to keep that card and If you have two kiddos playing or you can play along with them Whoever has the most cards wins whoever catches the most fish, you know when you go out They're the winner So the key takeaway is kids learn best when they're actively involved in the process.

9:28 So I didn't write this one out, but I do want to add this one in because it's one of my very favorites to use in the classroom. Get your Candy Land board out. You're going to use those same sight words that you put on the next cards. You're going to roll the dice instead of using the Little color cards. So, you know you normally when you play candy lane You're going to pick up the color card and if it says to blue you're going to go to the one that has to blue You're going instead you're going to roll the dice. They're going to draw one of the cards they have to read it and then they get to go however many number they rolled. So if they rolled a six they get to go six but they're gonna pick a card and read the card. The other thing that I've done is write the sight words on the back of your Candy Land cards. The problem with that is though and that's great if you want to keep that for sight words only. Is I like to use a candyland board for numbers? addition recognizing numbers you can use it for addition you can use it for subtraction so if you put your sight words on the back of your Candy Land cards then you won't be able to use those for anything else and so that's fine if that's what you want to do but it's really much easier just to roll your dice and go forward that many that many that you roll pick a card and read it and you can actually use that for any content that you're trying to learn very fun So we're gonna reinforce those sight words

11:01 through games. Oh my goodness. This one's so fun Have you ever played whack -a -mole like at the Chuck Cheese or you know at a fair or something like that you play the whack -a -mole? well this is kind of like that they're going to whack the sight word but you use a fly swatter so it's called swat the sight word write words on index cards spread them out and let kids swat the correct word with a fly swatter when you call it out so that's a lot of fun so you're just going to call it out and they are going to swat the word if you don't have a fly swatter we have played tap the word so they're just going to tap it with their hand Give a little warning out though if they tap it too hard their hand will hurt and I've had that happen with kiddos they get really excited especially if I'm having two or three trying to tap the same word at the same time as a little competition that's always so fun but boy they get excited and they hit that table a little bit too hard and it can cause their little fingers to sting so just give them a little heads up on that. Sight word bingo.

12:05 This is fun use bingo cards with sight words and play just like traditional bingo So listen if you don't have a bingo card with sight words already on it Easy peasy you can make a table Just draw out your lines with four squares going across and four squares going down or five squares across five You know, just draw it with a pencil and your ruler or your marker in your ruler and then You can write those words in there and then what you're gonna do is you want to do Three or four but do them different if you have different kiddos playing So if you have two or three kids playing you want them to be different so that they don't all get bingo on the same round. Another fun thing that I learned from one of my teacher friends is give them the card blank and she called it wordo so this is really fun so wordo so she calls out a sight word they have to write it in one of the boxes and they get to pick any box they want to write it in and you help them spell it out or whatever put it on a whiteboard they're spelling it out until you get like all of the 16 words written. then when you call it out no because they're gonna put it anywhere so they're not gonna write it in the first square they're not they're gonna they have to they're gonna pick anywhere on the board to write this and then when you go to call out the word they will place whatever you've put you can use at

13:35 home you can use macaroni's pennies you can use beans just whatever you have laying around if you have toy blocks that would be fun too or the little circles but you can really use anything that you have laying around the house. But they are writing their words everywhere on that paper so that when you call out a word they're not going to have the same place. So somebody's going to get a bingo or a word -o and they won't all get it at the same time. can still do that even if you're playing with one child just it's so fun they just they're learning and they don't even know it rainbow writing have kids trace sight words with different colors to create a rainbow effect saying the word aloud each time so then you can help them spell it the first time and then they're going to go over it with different colors I've seen the rainbow writing to where they trace around it and color it in and then trace it bigger and colored in and go bigger and bigger till it's all rainbow. But I think if you're wanting to really focus on how to spell it, the thing you're gonna want them to do is literally trace over the letters right on top of it and that way they're getting that like if they're writing the word the they're going to be writing t -h -e in red and then they're going to write t -h -e in blue and then t -h -e in green so they're going to get more practice writing the word the rather than coloring around it and decorating it. Both are fun to do but one is just a little bit more effective than the other. Word jump. Spread sight word cards

15:09 on the floor and have kids jump to the correct one when you call it out. Now we actually call this one stomp. So we call it, I was thinking jump and stomp and I said stomp. So we call it stomp. So then you call it a word and they're going to stomp on the correct word. So that's a lot of fun too. sentence building with sight words so give kids index cards with different words and encourage them to build simple sentences so they're going to just call out a word and then you're going to make a sentence with that word or if you want to try to take the words and make a sentence and some of them may come out a little silly and that is what's so funny and they'll get tickled and all will be giggling at the end So if you're looking for even more hands -on sight words, I've got you covered.

16:02 I created a sight word scavenger hunt. It's an all -year bundle packed with 360 pages of engaging activities designed to make learning sight words easy and fun. Now normally it's $30, but for a limited time you can grab it for $15. That's 50 % off. This is 360 pages. for fifteen dollars so it's like a big workbook i mean you in the site where it's actually the scavenger hunts are for all years there's saint patrick's day there's christmas there's valentine's day so you could play this game once a month all through the year and that's just for fifteen dollars so you can get the bundle in the show notes so I will include the link there for you and if you want even more ideas I also wrote a blog post recently with additional site word activities that you can try right away so you will find that latest blog post on site words in the show notes so I hope today's episode gave you fun practical ways to make site word learning exciting the key is to keep it interactive playful and engaging whether it's hopping painting fishing or swatting learning through movement and games helps kids develop fluency without the frustration and don't forget next time you listen you're

17:34 gonna hear my brand new bumper with the education podcast network i'm so excited to be a part of this incredible group and i can't wait for all the amazing all the amazing things ahead so if you enjoyed this episode be sure to subscribe so you don't miss future episodes and if you found these tips helpful please share them with other teachers and parents to discover the podcast and I'd love for you to leave a quick review with leaving me a five star rating that helps others find my podcast. It helps boost the algorithm to where more people can find it and more people can get the hands -on learning if you have enjoyed or if these tips have been helpful to you at all. So thanks for tuning in and remember you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. See you next time!