Sight Words in Kindergarten

This year I've been helping some of Johnny Boo's kindergarten classmates with letters and sight words. I've also become addicted to Pinterest, much to my husband's chagrin (Chagrinterest?). Following are a couple of sight word games copied from or inspired by pins I've made:

Sight Word Parking Lot (based on a bigger parking lot game at Juggling With Kids)

Print Parking Lot game here.

I decided to laminate it and write the words on with dry-erase markers afterward, depending on which words the kids needed to work on most. It's a good thing I left it blank, because my 9-year-old actually likes working on his multiplication tables this way. Just write whichever words, letters, numbers, equations, etc., you want; call out whatever you want the child to find; and have him drive his car to the correct parking space. This was a big hit with everyone last week, especially the boys.

Here's Tintin:

Word Roll (the original, with a free download and directions, can be found at Wishes Dream Love)

Print Word Roll here.

I used the 31 words (plus a few more) that our kindergarteners need to know by the end of the year. So far I've only used this with one boy. He got the hang of finding the correct word after I told him to "crash" his fingers when they met up, and then he wanted to keep rolling the dice (one with numbers and one with the letters added on) so he could keep crashing his fingers. The original directions have the child crossing each word off once it's read, but the boy I was working with needed repetition, so I wanted him to roll the same combinations over and over again.

Here are some more sight word activities I've pinned:

Road Race
Roll & Write
Sight Words Bingo
Spelling Practice With Nautical Flags

Books of the Week: Chicken Butt!, Chicken Butt's Back!, Kindergarten Rocks!

Both boys are still obsessed with Maurice Sendak's Nutshell Library books (see our review), and with the Carole King album that goes with them. Here are our other favorites from the past week:

Tintin, age 8, and Johnny Boo, age 5

Chicken Butt!; Chicken Butt's Back!
Author/illustrator: Erica S. Perl/Henry Cole
Publisher: Abrams Books for Young Readers (April 2009; April 2011)
Source: Public library

These books are about one of the boys' favorite topics: butts (with a few other body parts and some underwear thrown in). In Chicken Butt!, a boy tells chicken jokes (starting with the classic "You know what? What? Chicken butt!") to get his dad's attention, pestering him until he practically loses his mind. In Chicken Butt's Back!, the same boy tries again at the grocery store with his mother, who is by now familiar with his jokes and is already annoyed with chicken butts. Fortunately for the boy, he finds a new way to trick his mom into listening to his jokes, and all sorts of animal butts are mentioned. Fortunately for me, my boys were happy enough to read the jokes in the books and not repeat them too often.

Tintin's note: I liked when his mom got confused about all the butts.

Find them: Amazon (Chicken Butt!, Chicken Butt's Back!), IndieBound (Chicken Butt!, Chicken Butt's Back!)

Johnny Boo, age 5

Kindergarten Rocks!
Author/illustrator: Katie Davis
Publisher: Scholastic (2011)
Source: Home library/gift from preschool teachers

Dexter is about to enter kindergarten, but his stuffed dog, Rufus, is a bit scared and nervous (of course, Dexter is completely calm). Rufus and Dexter are lucky, though, because Dexter's big sister, Jessie, has already been to kindergarten and tells them that kindergarten rocks. Whenever Dexter brings up something that Rufus is nervous about, Jessie is there to reassure them. Johnny Boo took this out of the library, and shortly after he received it from his teachers. He was so excited, he read it on the way home from school and a few other times that day. And the day after. And the day after that. He was so excited, he had to go to the library just to find more books by Katie Davis, and we ended up bringing home Who Hops? and Who Hoots?, which he read in the car on the way home. Also, this Kindergarten Rocks! video didn't hurt.

Johnny Boo's note: It was good and useful and great and fantastic.

Find it: Amazon, IndieBound