I am still trying to absorb the devastating affects this flood is having on our city of Calgary and in southern Alberta. Seeing the bleak pictures and aerial images of homes and familiar restaurants, shops and pubs submerged in murky water, roads and bridges being consumed and washed out, and our beloved zoo engulfed in a muddy, brown lake has been absolutely surreal. Luckily, our home is on high ground, away from the rivers, but the sadness I feel for my city and the surrounding areas is overwhelming. Albertans are kind, compassionate, resilient, and hardworking, so there is no question we will get through this together. As a Calgarian, I am so proud and grateful to all of the emergency response workers, and to our dedicated mayor, Naheed Nenshi, for their outstanding and tireless efforts to keep our fellow Calgarians safe and cared for. THANK YOU!
Due to all the rain, and being confined indoors, I figured yesterday was good a day as any to have M practice some sight words. The Dolch word list is made up of 220 high frequency words children encounter while reading age appropriate texts from pre-primer- Grade 3. The goal is to have children memorize these words, without having to take the time to sound them out, in order to improve their overall reading fluency. I chose some words from the pre-primer Dolch Word List, which I found here, and printed them onto these bug templates. I added a bit of colour to the bugs to make them stand out more (you could also have your child colour them) and then chose three of the sight word bugs to tape onto our patio door. After introducing M to the first few words, I gave him a fun flyswatter I had purchased from Dollarama, and had him swat the bugs with the sight words I called out to him. I didn’t want to overwhelm M with a bunch of unfamiliar words, so we started off slow and gradually added on as he gained confidence. I was really impressed with how quickly he was able to recognize the new sight words! By the end, he was busy swatting 10 sight word bugs with very little hesitation!
The best part of this game is you can adapt it to suit the individual needs of your child (you could play swat the letters instead, or you could choose from more difficult words, depending on your child’s skill level) and keep adding and swapping out words with new sight words as your child progresses.
M was having so much fun swatting the sight word bugs that I’m not sure he even realized he was reading!
Click the link for more literacy activities 🙂
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