Kinetic Sight Word Activity… With a Beach Ball

Have I told you about our Fridays? We are homeschooling our oldest two kiddos and Fridays are our fun learning day! We count with legos, we have “PE at the park”, and we play sight word ball. Even our two and one year old kiddos join in the fun!.
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What do you need to have a ball of a Friday?

A Beach Ball
A Permanent Marker
Room to pelt gently toss a ball to each other.
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Here are some of the words we have put on our ball (taken from the book Kid Writing – great resource for nurturing our students to literacy):
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a, an, and, but, if, that, the, this, is, was, has, had, have, been, be, by, bye, hi, at, am, are, not, it, its, or, of, to, on, the, in, into, you, your, our, my, me, I, he, she, they, their, there, those, these, other, here, were, for, with, who, what, when, then, than, how, why, from, go, went, no, not, yes, can, say, said, will, each, about, which, would, could, should, up, down, out, in, on, on top, over, under, only, side, some, many, like, see, make, made, very, after, before, little, big, find, did, do, done, don’t
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Ideas on learning with a sight words ball:

• If your child is already reading, have them read the words on the color they catch.
• If your child is not yet reading, have them point to a word and you tell them what it is before they toss the ball.
• If your child knows all the words, have them create a sentence with as many words as they can from the color they picked.

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This game has been a huge hit with my non-reading kiddos, with my newly reading kiddos and with the neighbors who are reading independently!  I got the inspiration from this activity from a reader, thanks bunches Habeebee Homeschooling she advised (in a conversation on the Quirky Momma Facebook page) to help our kids learn to read by writing sight words on a balloon and bouncing the balloons around the room.  A beach ball is our “more permanent” variation.   Thanks Habeebee!