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!
Fun Sight Word Activity
This is one of the kids’ favorite games. It is a simple game with lots of learning potential.
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.
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):
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
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.
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!
I just love this idea! I have been looking for other ideas to make learning sight words fun!
Nifty idea. Anything with movement makes me smile – do you know what age they start to learn sight words?
I love this, and love h ow you can adapt t to different reading levels. I can play it with my two older girls even though they are at totally different levels. And we do need hel in this area – thanks!
another brilliant idea! thank you!
This is such a brilliant idea!! And love that it can be used for many reading levels. 🙂 I am definitely excited to try this out!! Thank you for sharing!!
This is a great idea! We included it @ theclassroomcreative in our summer reading sight words game post. What’s summer without fun and a beach ball and it couldn’t hurt to learn while you are having fun! Enjoy your summer, Karen & Nicolette
Hi, brilliant. My dad is in a nursing home and has a sensory /visitors room and that has a ball with lots of questions on it, like your first home, pet, favourite colour, etc. We took it turns to catch the ball and all answer the question on the top. I was thinking of buying one as it was so much fun over Christmas. Now I can make our own!! Thank you.
Fantastic idea! Just sitting and practicing or playing site word games can get so wiggly, so adding some movement would be awesome. Thanks for the activity idea!
That is really cool! I have never heard of that, but bet it is fun for all ages.
What a fun way to learn sight words! Looking forward to trying this with my son. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
WOWW that was great.
Will make students of my school do this activity.
Keep on posting such articles and i am surely gonna follow you now.
Thanks