Sight Word Games

I love playing games with my kiddos but sometime I don't always want to purchase the latest thing or game. Since I am a teacher and could ALMOST live on the teacherspayteachers website, I figured that I could use it for my own little learners, too!

Why NOT?!?!?!

Laura Martin of teacherspayteachers does a great job creating some products for beginning readers. 

I found these great I Have, Who Has game cards that my little reader and I can play together. 

My younger one can play with us with me helping point to the card to use. 

               

I use my own laminator to make cards at home. I purchased my laminator at Target for about $30. This is similar, but there are many out there. The heat laminating pouches I normally find online from Walmart at the best value (about $15 for 100 pack). You can get the 3mm pouches, they work fine! I use the 5 mm in my classroom as they are thinker and hold up better with daily use. Therefore, these were made with 5 mm because that is want I have. 

Update**** my kiddos LOVE this game! They are 4 and 3 years of age and had a blast sorting them outside, making a tower of words!

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/I-Have-Who-Has-Monster-Sight-Words-202982

Painting with Toys

 

Cut sponges into pieces and allow kids to feel the different textures as well as what happens when they get to use different sides and textures to paint with. 

 

Try using scrubbing sponges as a paint brush. Kids will love seeing what happens to paint as it is dotted and smeared. 

 

We are using a small textured basketball to roll in paint and roll around the paper. It was great to talk about the bumps on the paper and then had fun washing the basketball off to use to slam dunk in our mini hoop. 

 

Try dipping cookie cutters in paint and making different sharps and stories. 

 

One of our favorite! Use a car or truck that you can run or race through paint and then "race" across the pages. Have fun with it!! 

Try This: 

Use animals to paint tracks across the page

Borrow some craft stamps and practice stamping

Cut an apple or potato in have and use as a homemade stamp

Singing our ABC's

 

A few years ago, having the privilege to teach kindergarten for a year, I created felt letters cards. I used a bulletin board stencil to draw on scraps of felt and then glued the felt on to foam boards.

We pull the cards out frequently. We lay them out to find different letters, colors, sounds. We sing the ABC song over and over. It's an awesome activity to share with those who want to play with the kids but don't want to get messy.

Lacing

Fine motor skills are crucial as kiddos grow into writers and crafters. 

Here is an easy (and SUPER cheap) homemade lacing activity!

Cut out any shape you want from construction paper, we have an apply. Use a hole punch to put a few holes around the edge of the shape. Use yarn to lace through the holes. (Extra shoe laces work well, although, I not sure who have a ton of those around:) )

** one trick to help with lacing: wrap the end of the yarn with tape to make it more similar to a shoe lace***

Stacking

CP is one creative kid. We found that he does not get into trouble very often as we let him explore (safely) around the house (Inquiry learning). We only say no if it is breakable or can hurt him severely. We guide him to areas of the home that are fairly harmless. 

Yes, the cans can hurt him but we were working together and if they fell over we said "no big deal" and if you notice the cans leaned away from him (I may of had something to do with that, just in case)

On this day he was in the cabinet that holds tea, hot chocolate, and soup cans. He thought it was a great idea to try and stack all the cans. Well since there was about 8-10 I removed all but five from the situation so there was no fight and modeled how to stack the rest. 

Awesome motor skill and hand/eye coordination practice. 

We stack all sorts of things around our house. The usual of course, building blocks, Legos, cups. 

Now try a few unusual items to spice up your kiddo's day. It will help keep attention longer if you are able to change the items used. 
Examples: soda cans (full or empty - if you use empty, tape over the sharp opening), cups, plastic bowls, books (try various sizes and see if they can figure out the strongest "tower"), tissue boxes, empty toliet paper/ paper towel tubes. You get the idea :)

Mix and Sort

One of the cheapest activities with a huge amount of success! I purchased a bag of three different kinds of dried beans (store brand from the local grocery store added up to about $5 total). I snagged an empty folgers container from my parents to use as storage.

CP loves to scoop and dump the beans on the floor. We practice using old measuring cups and spoons to scoop and aim where we dump. (we watch closely to make sure nothing goes in the mouth.)

We spend time sorting the size, color, shape and discussion how they are alike and different. You'd be surprised how much kiddos understand at 19 months old.

 

As you may notice, by the end of our play session, beans are EVERYWHERE. Now we use an old sheet as a drop cloth and we can easily clean up stray beans. 

 

One of the best pieces of advice I can give is to place these in a safe spot and bring them out on occasion. I believe this is such a huge success and am able to get quite a bit of play time and focused attention on this is because it is out of sight, out of mind. "New" each time I bring it out.