35 Sight Word Games and Activities

When I was faced with teaching Evan how to read and nothing seemed to be "sticking" we turned to games.  We have played so many sight word games and activities over the past few years to keep him engaged and interested in learning.  Using the same words for various games reinforces the words and mixing up the activities keeps him willing to play.

Here are our favorite sight word games and activities:

1. Pop the Sight Word-- I often write his sight words on the air filled plastic packaging that comes in the mail and have had Evan read the word before popping it.

2. Magically appearing sight words-- I have written sight words in white crayon on white paper before and had Evan use watercolors to make them magically appear.  He then reads the words that show up.

3. Disappearing sight words-- I've written his sight words in chalk on our chalkboard and had him trace over the words using water and a paint brush.  The letters disappear one by one until the words are gone.

4. Shoot the sight words-- I've written sight words on cups or on slips of paper and let Evan go around shooting them with his Nerf gun.  He reads whatever words he shoots down.

5. Stamp the sight words-- using play dough and rubber stamp letters Evan sometimes stamps out the sight words in the play dough; it's great reading and spelling practice.  It's just as much fun with paper and ink too!

6. Fizzing sight words-- I have some letter trays I purchased on Amazon and one day I filled them with a baking soda/ water paste (I also added some Kool- aid to them to give them both color and a scent).  I froze the trays until the letters were hard and then gave Evan a bottle filled with vinegar and a tray of letters.  He built all the sight words he could think of and then had fun making the words dissolve.

7. Sight Word Stacking Cups-- I write his sight words on the bottom of large Dixie cups and store them in an empty (clean) Pringles can.  As he reads each word he stacks them up into pyramids and castles.

8. Rainbow Sight Words-- One year for St. Patrick's Day I wrote sight words on balloons; making sure to pick a rainbow of colors.  I them taped them to the windowsill and as he read them out loud he popped each balloon.

 

9.  Hopping on the sight words-- I write sight words on post it notes and make trails through the house.  Evan reads the words as he hops along the trail.

10. Ghostly words-- I have sprayed shaving cream onto a cookie sheet and have had him trace the sight words in the shaving cream with his fingers.  They "erase" quickly by smearing the shaving cream and he has so much fun getting messy with learning.

11. Erasable sight words-- Evan has practiced reading and writing his sight words using dry erase markers on our windows.

12.  Sight Word Bang-  We have a wide mouth container (a coffee can works great!) that we put many slips of paper into.  Each slip either has a sight word on it or the word BANG written on it.  We usually only play with three BANG slips and lots of sight words. I also make sure that the word bang is in all caps and surrounded by lines that make it look explosive.  Each player takes a turn picking a word out of the jar and reading it.  They keep all the words they read but if they get BANG all the words they have collected must go back into the container.  We usually play until one person has had BANG three times.

13.  Musical Sight Words-- we laid slips of paper with sight words written on them around the room in a circle.  (His brothers were kind enough to play with him). I played music and the boys walked around (or danced, jumped, crawled, etc) around the circle until the music stopped.  They then had to read whatever word they landed on out loud to me.  It was a fun way to practice the words and since there were no winners or losers there were no hard feelings either.

14.  Sight Word Memory-- I printed off a set of sight words cards onto colored card stock and made an extra copy so we had two identical sets of sight words.  Once I cut them apart we placed them face down in rows and columns and played memory using our sight words.

15.  Sight Word Bingo-- We have a few sight word bingo games that we purchased and it's a fun way to play and practice sight words.  There are many printable versions on the web as well; check out these free ones.

16.  Sight Word Slap- I bought a dollar store shower curtain liner and some fly swatters.  I wrote his sight words on the shower curtain using a marker and then he would read them out and swat them with the flyswatter.

17.  Sight Word Hopscotch-- We used chalk to draw a hopscotch board on the driveway and filled each block with a sight word.  We then played like traditional hopscotch but we had to read the word that our rock landed on before hopping through.

18.  Find the Sight Word-- I took a piece of white paper and cut it down to the size of a gallon sized Ziploc bag.  I then wrote his sight words randomly over the paper using a fine point black marker.  I filled a Ziploc bag with enough finger paint to coat the entire bag and zipping it securely shut (I reinforced the opening with clear packing tape. Then I taped the bag over the piece of paper and set it down in front of him with a list of the words he needed to find.  He would read the word on the slip of paper to me and then he would push the paint around inside the bag to uncover the word.

19.  Sight Word Don't Break the Ice-- Using our Don't Break the Ice game and some wet erase markers I wrote one sight word on each block.  As Evan chose which block to knock out he would read the word aloud.  We made sure to empty our blocks out from underneath the game so if more than one block fell he would read all the words he made fall too.  We usually play 3 to 4 games so he gets lots of practice in.

20.  Spray the Sight Word-- We wrote sight words on coffee filters using markers.  Once Evan had read and written a few sight words onto each filter he sprayed the entire filter with water and watched the markers bleed together and the words disappear.

21.  Hidden Sight Words-- I have written sight words on colored slips of paper and hidden them around the house (at Easter time I've put the words inside eggs and then hidden the eggs).  Evan has to go around and find all the slips of paper; reading the words as he finds them.

22. Edible Sight Words-- Using alphabet cookies and scrabble letter Cheeze-It's Evan has spelled sight words and read sight words that I have spelled out for him.  When we're all done he gets to gobble up some cookies or crackers.

23. Electronic Games-- We have played many electronic games using the Kindle and computer to practice sight words.  Everything from drawing apps where he draws out the sight words (or read sight words I have drawn) to playing ABC ya games and Spelling City games.

24.  Magnetic Sight Words-- Using our alphabet letters Evan builds sight words; often copying them.  He'll read them out loud and search for the letters he needs to spell them.

25.  Sight Word Spider Web-- When we were studying Harry Potter we made a huge masking tape web across our doorway.  I wrote sight words on slips of paper and Evan would read them and put them in the web.  We tried balling them up and throwing them at the web but our paper sheets were too small and kept falling right through the spaces.

26. Sight Word "Cupcake" toss-- I wrote sight words on cupcake liners and Evan had to toss pompoms into the cups reading out the words where his pompoms landed.

27.  Sight Word Tic Tac Toe-- We drew a tic tac toe board and wrote a sight word in each box. Using colored counters or mini pompoms we played tic tac toe but instead of drawing x's and o's we called out words.  The first one to get three in a row won.  We played so many rounds because it was so much fun and pretty quick too.

28.  Who's Hiding Under There?-- I wrote sight words on large Solo cups and hid action figures under various words. He had to read the words and guess which word the guy was hiding under.  We soon put guys under all the words and he told me who was hiding under every word.

29.  Sight Word Snowball fight-- We wrote sight words on pieces of white paper and then crumpled them up to look like snowballs.  The boys took turns throwing them at each other.  When they had thrown all the snowballs in their pile they went around collecting new balls.  As Evan collected balls he had to open up the paper and read the sight words.

30.  Whip the Sight Word-- When Evan got his Indiana Jones set and found the toy whip he asked me to come up with something where he could practice his sight words using his whip.  We took out our sight word cups and I set them up around the room in various places.  He would read the wight word and try to knock them off using his whip.

31.  Sight Word Plow-- I drew a curvy sidewalk/road on a piece of paper.  I wrote sight words on each square and put the paper on a cookie sheet.  I then covered them up with a bit of baking soda and handed Evan a toy plow truck.  He had to clean the snow off the road and read each word he uncovered to me.

32.  Sight Word Spin-- My boys love Beyblades and so one day we came up with a sight word game using them.  I printed out a slip of paper with some sight words on it; put the paper in the Beyblade stadium and let them play.  Evan would read out the word he Beyblade landed on when it finally stopped spinning. 

33. Blast the Sight Word-- I've written sight words on our driveway in chalk and handed Evan a water squirter.  He reads the sight words and blasts them with water until they smear together.

34.  Splat the Sight Word-- Another hot summer day I wrote sight words in chalk and handed Evan a bucket of water balloons. He'd read out the word and throw the water balloon at it. 

35.  Printable Sight Word Games-- Over the years we've printed out many different sight word games to play together.  Try this version of 4 in a Row, this fun looking Dinosaur game, or these winter board games that were a huge hit i our house!

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