Sight Words

My oldest student is ready for a bit more of a challenge and so in the afternoon I have some activity trays set aside for her that focus on print concepts/vocabulary, sight words, and reading concepts.  No, this is not typical for most preschoolers.  I do not normally do much more than generally introduce the idea of sight words and really, most are not ready to learn to read until at least the last part of the school year or even until they get into Kindergarten.  But we'll have to remember that she has been with me since a newborn and here full time during her main preschool years.  Makes a difference!  It'll be exciting to see this part of her development. 

Today I'll just share three sight word activities we did focusing on the words one, two, three and red, yellow, blue.  I chose these words first as I often place the words under the colors and numbers in our activities so they are somewhat familiar.  As an introduction we did a little crayon/water color resist.  This is not a new activity for us...we do them quite frequently but the idea of "magic words" always adds the excitement.

I had wrote the simple sentences on white cardstock, with white crayon.  She painted over the cardstock with watercolor and then we read the sentences together.  One of my goals was to see where she was at with simple sentence comprehension.  I had placed the corresponding colored markers and stencils on a tray for her and after we read the sentence she chose the color of marker we needed and the stencil and traced the stencil that many times.  I chose to color the shapes in myself, for various reasons. 

The next day we did some simple sight word puzzles.

I just used a different cut for each rectangle to make them into puzzles.  I can always do more in the same format and use them for games and that will allow for review in the future.

Then another day we played Memory. 

Eventually we'll have to move to just the words as many sight words do not have a picture to correspond with them.  But we can create more in the same format and make a larger memory board.

The really nice thing is that I have her every day, all year, so we can go as slowly or quickly as we wish.  Next week we'll be adding "look" and "a" but also using these same sight words until she really gets them.

Please share any of your sight word activities...I sometimes get in a rut with sight word activities, especially, and so am always looking for reminders and fresh ideas!