games Archives - JDaniel4s Mom

Pick Up Sticks Sight Word Games

April 19, 2015 By Deirdre

You probably have a bunch of word lists that your kids have brought home from school or worked with at home. You can develop a compiled list of sight words from those lists. That list can be used to create great sight word games. We have used our list to explore words on a taped spider web and by hanging tissue paper leaves in the correct order to create words. Just recently I wrote some of this year’s sight words on wooden chopsticks. We used them to play a bunch of sight word games.

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Tips for Making Your Pick Up Sticks

The words were written on the chopsticks with traditional markers because of that the letters got a little blurry. (I really need to invest in some Sharpie Twin Tip Permanent Markers, Fine & Ultra-Fine Points, Black, 4 Pack (32175PP).) Another thing I need to do is write the below the line letters (Letters like g and q.) a little higher up on the chopsticks.

The letters were written on only one side of a chopstick. You may choose write a word on the front and back of a chopstick. I figured children could just turn the chopstick over to see the word it if was faced down.

Various Sight Word Games

The First of the Sight Word Games

All of the sight word pick up sticks were gathered up in one hand and dropped onto a plastic mat. (The plastic mat was selected because the sticks on the bottom would slide easily off the mat.) Then we took turns trying to pull out a chopstick out of the pile. If the stick was successfully picked up and the words was read correctly, the stick was added to the readers success pile.

If the stick moved another stick or was misread, it was slipped back into the pile.

The Second of the Sight Word Games

To insure that the sticks end up upside the players of the game will build a pile of chopsticks with the words faced down. In this version of the game the players will not get to see what word they are removing for the stack. It will be a surprise.

We found that kids tried to pick words they thought were easy in the first version of the sight word games. In this version they only knew what the word would be if they selected a stick that someone had to put back in the pile.

The Third of the Sight Word Games

This version of the sight word games is played backwards. Children are given a equal number of the sight word chopsticks. They will take turns reading the words on their sticks. If they read the word correctly, they can add it to the pile of sticks. If the stick rolls or falls off the stack, then they have to place in back in their pile to try adding again later.

To make this version very challenging the sticks can be place on an over turned jar lid. It will be harder to balance the word sticks on the lid.

The Fourth of the Sight Word Games

This version is a twist on the first game. Children have to share a word that rhymes with the word they have selected as well as reading the word.

Here are a number of other sight word games and activities:

Dolch Sight Word Hopscotch

Sight Word Cup Stacking

Sight Word Tree Activity

Sight Word Game- Apple Tree Words

Writing Sight Words on a Rainbow

If you do try any of the above sight words activities, please leave me a comment below telling me about it or share a picture of it on my Facebook page.

Learning Activities with Dr Seuss Characters

February 25, 2015 By Deirdre

Learning Activities with Dr Seuss Characters

Dr Seuss characters are fun to learn along with on Dr Seuss’ birthday (March 2nd) and well any time of the year really. Children see characters that they know and get excited about getting to play and learn with them outside of their books. I have created at number for learning games and activities the feature Dr Seuss characters over the last few years. I hope that you find a few that you that you would like to do with the children that learn with you.

Dr Seuss Characters and Activities We Have Done that Feature Them

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The Lorax

$Learning Activities with Dr Seuss Characters$

We have done a number of activities that feature the Lorax. He is one of my son’s favorite Dr Seuss characters.

The Cat in the Hat

$Learning Activities with Dr Seuss Characters$

We have done crafts and math games all featuring the Cat in the Hat and other Dr Seuss characters in his book.

Green Eggs and Ham

Learning Activities with Dr Seuss Characters

Sam I Am is just one of those characters that fills both your children’s head and yours with rhymes. I bet many of us can recite most of the words in this book.

Green Eggs and Ham Breakfast– The whipped cream and bacon covered pancake went really well with a serving of green eggs and ham.
Green Egg Circles and Bacon Striped X’s were fun to use while playing tic tac toe.

The Tooth Book (Bright & Early Board Books(TM))

tooth book activity

It is fascinating to read this book and see just how many different kinds of teeth there are in the world.

Sensory Bin with Teeth and a Toothbrush Activity

Fox in Socks (Beginner Books)

Learning Activities with Dr Seuss Characters

We did a retelling activity after reading this book. What fun it was to make a fox with a sock!

Fox in Sox Puppet

Dr. Seuss’s Beginner Book Collection (Cat in the Hat, One Fish Two Fish, Green Eggs and Ham, Hop on Pop, Fox in Socks)

Learning Activities with Dr Seuss Characters

We made homemade play dough based on a number of Dr Seuss characters we read about in a collection of his book.

Homemade Play Dough in Dr Seuss Colors

If you do try any of the above Dr Seuss character activities, please leave me a comment below telling me about it or share a picture of it on my Facebook page. You may also want to check out my Dr Seuss board on Pinterest. It is filled with wonderful activities that feature Dr Seuss Characters.

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Halloween Games for Kids- Boxes and Pumpkins

October 22, 2014 By Deirdre

Coming up with some new Halloween games to play with my son has been on my To Do list all fall. A wide variety of games have been placed on a brainstorming list. I just never seemed to stop and pick up the materials needed to create them. Recently the school I teach at received a whole box of headphones. Each set of headphones came in its own sturdy white box. My students love the new headphones. They are great! I decided that they were the perfect supply to finally create some Halloween games with.

To make our Halloween games look more Halloween like I placed a pumpkin on each box. Although I think we could have played the games with the plain white boxes or we could have added Halloween paper behind the pumpkins.

Ideas for Halloween Games

Bowling for Boxes
The boxes can be arranged in a tower or a wall. Deciding to arrange them turned into an activity all of its own at my house. Then the wall or tower can be knocked down using a small plastic ball. The ball we used wasn’t that heavy or big. You may want to experiment with several different types of ball to decide which one you like the best.

Building a Tall Tower

I mentioned that building a tower or a wall could turn into its own activity. Well, here is how you could make the activity a game. We had ten boxes build with. The boxes could be divided into two piles. Two children could try to build the tallest tower possible with their set of boxes. The winner would have the tallest tower that remained standing.

If you are playing this game outside on a slightly windy day, you might want to time whose tower stays up the longest with a stopwatch.

Moving Boxes
The boxes can be place into two piles at the start line of a race. Children can take their boxes to the end line of the race area one at a time. (You will want to mark both areas with tape or a cone.) You can decide how the children will move from the starting line to the ending line. They could walk, jump, hop, side step, run, or gallop back and forth.The team or person with their boxes near the finish line first has won.

These are just a few games that we played with a set of white boxes. I bet you can come up with a lot more. If you do, please share them in a comment below.

Here are some other Halloween games and activities I think you will like:

Halloween Activities for Kids- Mouse House Pumpkin

Halloween Crafts-Egg Carton Skeleton and Bone Soup

Halloween Craft and Activities for Kids

{Free Printable} Word Games- Sight Word Scarecrow Game

September 9, 2014 By Deirdre

I am going to use the Scarecrow Word Sight Word Game in this post to play words games that focus on sight words with my son. I thought you might like a copy of it to use with your children. You actually may decide that you want to play different word games with it or work on other reading concepts instead. It has been purposely left open ended. Let me tell you about how I plan to use it.

As I mentioned we are going to use it for working on sight words. I found a list of first grade sight words online (my son is in first grade) and placed a number of them on one side of a 3×5 index card cut in half. The goal of this game is to read a word to move forward one circle in the game. If you misread a word, then you stay on the space you are on. I want to go through the pile of card more than one time with my son. Going one dot and a time means we will both have time to read each word more than once.

Once we have played the game by advancing space by space, I will introduce a die to the game. When we have to roll to see how many spaces to move forward, there is a chance we will get to move forward much faster. This means that this version will be one of those word games that can end quickly.

Introducing making up a sentence to go along with each word that children read will give them a chance to show that they understand what the word means. You can ask that the sentences have more than four words or more. It would be hard to come up with short sentences that make sense with these words. If you are working with children that love a challenge, you can tell them the sentence should be a statement or a question.

After playing the game with this first set of words several times, I will create another set using different sight words on index cards. Once the words in the first set are mastered, it will be important offer more challenging words. I may place a few of the old sight words in the stack on new words. Words that had given my son the most trouble will definitely need to be seen again.

Here are some other reading or word games you could play with this game board:

vowel sounds- share a word with the vowel sound on the card or tell the vowel sound of the word on a card
contractions- share what words make up a contraction
rhyming words- share a word that rhymes with the word on a card
spelling words- read the meaning of a word on a card and spell the word you think it defines.
synonyms and antonyms- read a word and share another word that means the same thing or the opposite of that word

There are probably dozen of other word games you could play with this game board with a scarecrow theme. (Click on the link to the left to download this free printable)