We celebrated our last round through the alphabet with a sight word party on Friday. To start the day, students each chose a balloon to pop. Inside was a sight word that they became the experts of for the day. They wrote their word on a piece of paper that we taped to a vest that they wore. Then they worked in groups to sort the words or letters that were on the tables. Some sorted by rhyme, others sorted by beginning sounds, some sorted by upper and lower case, one group sorted by letter shape, another sorted by vowels, and one group sorted by the number of letters in each word.
During our Outdoor Exploration time, we made mud paint and the children painted their word with mud. Then they searched for spring foliage and made their word using nature materials.
In the afternoon, we left our door open for children to choose whether to explore inside or outside. Outside, some made sight words with sidewalk chalk, and others painted words with water on the pavement. We also set up several games outside to reflect the morning sorting rules that the kids came up with. Below is a description:
- ring toss according to the number of letters in the word - choose a word, count the letters, and toss the ring over the pylon that matches the number of letters
- beanbag toss according - choose a word and toss the letter beanbags into the buckets to spell the word
- bowling according to vowels - choose a sight word and bowl over the pin(s) with the vowel(s) that is/are in the sight word
- hopscotch - roll the dice, read that many sight words and hop to the number on the hopscotch mat
Inside, students fished for sight words in the water table, dug for sight words in the sand, built sight word towers with cups, painted sight words, made a sight word mural, searched for sight words in the spring marsh sensory bin, and parked cars in the sight word parking lot matching the number of letters and vowels on the cars to the number of letters and vowels in each sight word parking space.
At the end of the day, we crumpled up the word from our vests and had an indoor snowball fight with paper sight word snowballs. Whichever snowball the students ended up with was the one they got to take home and learn.
During our Outdoor Exploration time, we made mud paint and the children painted their word with mud. Then they searched for spring foliage and made their word using nature materials.
In the afternoon, we left our door open for children to choose whether to explore inside or outside. Outside, some made sight words with sidewalk chalk, and others painted words with water on the pavement. We also set up several games outside to reflect the morning sorting rules that the kids came up with. Below is a description:
- ring toss according to the number of letters in the word - choose a word, count the letters, and toss the ring over the pylon that matches the number of letters
- beanbag toss according - choose a word and toss the letter beanbags into the buckets to spell the word
- bowling according to vowels - choose a sight word and bowl over the pin(s) with the vowel(s) that is/are in the sight word
- hopscotch - roll the dice, read that many sight words and hop to the number on the hopscotch mat
Inside, students fished for sight words in the water table, dug for sight words in the sand, built sight word towers with cups, painted sight words, made a sight word mural, searched for sight words in the spring marsh sensory bin, and parked cars in the sight word parking lot matching the number of letters and vowels on the cars to the number of letters and vowels in each sight word parking space.
At the end of the day, we crumpled up the word from our vests and had an indoor snowball fight with paper sight word snowballs. Whichever snowball the students ended up with was the one they got to take home and learn.