I LOVE Sight Words!

I can officially say the end of the year is feeling close now! Today was my last instructional day of the after school program! Our official last day is Thursday and we are having a pizza party. Of course it has to be right when I decide to start eating healthy (I have said that before though!). Well, with the after school program coming to an end I had to go out with a BANG! They worked so hard for months on end and have learned so much! I am so proud of them! They deserved the extra fun this week! Check out what we did!

 

 

We played SIGHT WORD MUSICAL SPOTS, yes musical spots! I purchased these flower cut-outs from Michael's for $2.99 (plus the 15% teacher discount that I never knew we got! Ahh!). So, here is how you play...

 

• It is played much like musical chairs, but in a less, well, aggressive way! We all know how intense musical chairs can get sometimes. Anyways, the amount of spots or flowers you need depends on the amount of students in your group. My after school group only has 8 so I needed 28 flowers. I wrote "about" on 7 flowers, "any" on 6 flowers, "every" on 5 flowers, "just" on 4 flowers, "our" on 3 flowers, "could" on 2 flowers, and lastly, "then" on 1. This made it so one student got out each round. The students were very great sports about getting out! I just let them help me control my Pandora radio and call out the next word!
• I randomly laid out the flower spots all over the classroom floor. Like this...

• I played the music and the students began dancing around the room! They loved this part and the fact that I had Alvin & the Chipmunks on my phone!

 

• When the music stopped I called out the words in order (about, any, every, just, our, could, then). This way one student got out each round. As a variation, you could do enough of the same word so that no one gets out, however, the students enjoyed the excitement of the elimination.

 

The kiddos had soooo much fun! It was a great last day!

 

 

As for other fun, our group did sight word discovery bottles with glow-in-the-dark rice! OMG, it was a BLAST!!! Check out the pics!

 

 

I got white rice from Wal-Mart for $3.50 for 5lbs of rice. One bag was plenty to make 8 discovery bottles. I purchased glow-in-the-dark paint and simply mixed each color with some of the rice. I found that using zip-loc baggies was nearly mess free! I added a tablespoon of rubbing alcohol to each color bag to help the paint dry faster. After letting the baggies sit and dry overnight (with zip-loc open), I mixed all the colors together in one bowl. Lastly, let the rice charge in the sun and then there you have it, glow-in-the-dark rice!

 

 

 

After making the rice, I purchased glow sticks from the Dollar Tree (15 for $1) and added one stick to each water bottle. Then I filled each water bottle with 3 sight words (Be sure they are double-sided so they can be read regardless of which way they are shaken.). Fill the rice about 3/4 of the way full to allow the rice to move around the water bottle.

 

Let me just tell you, the students LOVED this! The students had to find the 3 words in his/her bottle and use the words in sentences before getting a new bottle. The children were so motivated and wrote some great sentences using their words! You better believe I saved that rice too! I plan on doing this activity again sometime!

 

Even with the lights off, the glow was enough to see the words. Being that the classroom isn't pitch black, it was perfect! I HIGHLY recommend a black light if you can get one! The rice glows so much more with the black light. I know you are probably thinking who really has a black light lying around?! Well, you probably don't! But, no worries because a black light can be purchased for a cheap $11 at Wal-Mart!

 

Okay, okay, I have rambled enough! I hope I didn't overwhelm you too much?! Either way, thanks so much for stopping by! I have some more exciting things to share with you tomorrow! I can't wait! Talk to you all soon! ;-)