Digging into Reading

Digging into Reading

Our kids LOVE their sandbox. We built it for them a few months ago and it is their favorite place to be. A few weeks ago, we played paleontologist. We hid some plastic dinosaurs and sea shells under the sand and then used a paint brush to carefully dig them up. We all had a blast with this game!

This week for reading Caleb was learning some new sight words and Lily was practicing some new short a-blends. We’ve played matching games and sorted words/blends, and used stickers to build the words/blend, but this week I took a little different approach.

I quickly selected 10 sight words I wanted Caleb to practice and I pulled out 10 a-blend cards for Lily. I quickly stuffed them into the sand about an inch down or less as they were playing without saying a word. This caught their attention and right away they were excited to play… and READ!

Playing Word Paleontologists:

Hand your children a paint brush and their off! We get into our paleontologist role by pretending that each flashcard found is rare and fragile. They must carefully use the paint brush to wipe away the sand until it is all swiped clear. (It helped that we did this when playing paleontologist with the dinosaurs and seashells as well!) We are all excited about a dig find and eagerly work to figure out what message is on the card.

As I mentioned, we practiced reading sight words and short a-blends, but this activity is great for practicing all kinds of skills such as letter names/sounds, blends, sight words, and vocabulary words. You could bury a card that had a picture or a word on it and have your child tell you a rhyming word. You could bury index cards with complete sentences on them to have them practice fluency skills. I also think it would be fun to bury a sentence in the sandbox each word on a different card and have your child try to figure out the secret message once all the words are uncovered!

We became Word Paleontologists, but your children might become Number Paleontologists! This would be a fun way to practice recognizing numbers, counting how many dots, addition, or subtraction problems and so much more! They could uncover a number and you could ask them to tell you a number that was more, less, or equal to that number. The list goes on and on!

Don’t have a sandbox? This activity could easily be done by anyone just by placing flashcards face down in a large plastic bin and covering them with some play sand.

On a side note, our sandbox is outside and although it is covered the sand just a few inches below the surface is damp from rain water that comes up from the ground. Caleb’s sight word cards were laminated and were unharmed in the process of this activity. Lily’s blends were written on index card stock and were not laminated. After finding them, although they were not damaged, you could tell they were near some moisture.

Do you like this idea? Try it! I’d love to hear all about your learning experience!

God Bless You on Your Learning Journey ~

3 Reading Practice Activities

3 Reading Practice Activities

We love playing games during our learning times. These 3 reading activities make it fun to practice letter names, sounds, sight words and blending words.

Reading is fun!

Peek-A-Boo Letters

For this activity, I folded a sheet of copy paper in half 3 times so that when you open the sheet up there are 16 squares. Then, I cut across the3 folds going across the short side of the paper. Each cut strip should have 4 squares.

Then, I wrote a letter inside each square. You can use painter’s tape to cover the letters yourself or like me, you can allow your little one to tear the tape and cover each letter herself. Once they’re covered, the student can choose one to uncover and say, “Peek-A-Boo (letter name)” or “Peek-A-Boo (letter sound).”

Then, the student can recover the letter and choose another one.  

Peek-A-Boo Blending

This activity is just like Peek-A-Boo letters but instead, I wrote words in the squares for my son to practice blending. First, he covered the words with painter’s tape. Then, he chose one to uncover and sound out. Once he figured it out he said, “Peek-A-Boo (word).” Then, he covered the words back up and chose another one. The game gets more and more fun because the next time he uncovered the word, he was already familiar with them and could figure out the word much faster. 

Sticky Letters & Sticky Words

For this activity, I tore short and long pieces of tape and placed each on the ground randomly. Then, I used a permanent marker to write letters and blending words. Each child took a turn. Lily Anne chose letters to name and Caleb chose words to read. Once they read them, they could peel them up.

 

Letter Bash & Sight Word Bash

Lily Anne played the Letter Bash game. I used painter’s tape to tape a letter to a paper cup. Then, I created a small tower. Lily told me the letter name and then got to throw a ball toward the tower to knock it over. She had a blast!

Caleb played the Sight Word Bash game. I taped a sight word to each cup and created a tower. Caleb read each word and then through the ball to knock down the tower. I love it when they get so excited they jump up and down all over the place when they’re learning! I know I’ve got a winner.

I hope you have as much fun with these games as we did. I’d love to hear how they went! Feel free to let me know in the comments below or find me on Facebook or Twitter! I always love to hear from my readers!

God Bless You on Your Learning Journey ~

Are you interested in more ways to practice sight words? Check out my post on Sight Word Games.

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