Campbell's Curriculum Corner

Using magnetic letters to spell sight words is a simple, hands-on way for kids to practice reading and building sight words. Simply write the words on flashcards and have students build the words. To make these types of sight word activities extra fun, display the words on your whiteboard, so that students can build the words on your teacher board. Plus this make a great center activity!

For this sight word activity all you need is a fly swatter! This game is great for building speed with identifying sight words. This game works well as a small group or whole group activity. To set up the game, you’ll need to write a few sight words on the board. Select one student to play. Call out a sight word and have them quickly swat the word. To make the activity more challenging, call two students up and let them race to be the first to swat the sight word. (You could also adapt this activity to practice letters, numbers, etc)

This activity is always a hit because students have so much fun cracking the code that they don’t realize they are actually learning sight words. Students identify the beginning sound of each picture to crack the code and spell a secret sight word. They use dry erase markers, magnetic letters, or letter tiles to build the word and then read it. The purpose of Secret Code Sight Words is not to sound the word out, but to build the word and then have students recognize the word they built.

This is a fun activity because students get to use highlighters, which keeps them engaged! Give students a magazine or a newspaper page and have them highlight a target sight word that you’ve selected. Or use pages like the ones pictured below.

Students read the target sight word at the top of the page and then use a highlighter (or bingo dabber) to highlight the corresponding words below. Find the Word includes over 130 no prep pages.