It is so strange to me that I have a first grader. When I taught first grade, my students seemed so big! Now that I have a first grader of my own, I can hardly believe how small they really were. My kiddo struggles with sight words so I have searched high and low for fun ways to practice these pesky little words. This is one of the activities I found that he loves! It helps that we play it on his white board since he loves using his white board! I had a class set made for his class and saved one out for him to use at home. You can find the instructions for the DIY white boards here.

For this game you will need:

• 1 white board
• 2 dry erase markers (different colors)
• a list of sight words to work on

To begin the game, we make a tic-tac-toe grid. I then write the sight words for the week on the left side of the white board. I have him point to each word and read it to me. If he doesn't recognize the word, I tell him the word and then have him say it back. He chooses a word and places a check by the word with his color marker, I then do the same.

You play the game just like tic-tac-toe, but instead of making an X or an O, write your chosen word in the space you choose. Each time he writes his word, I have him say the word he wrote and the same for the words I write. Play continues until someone make 3 in a row! Then simply erase the board (leaving the word bank on the left), remake the grid and choose 2 more words. We continue playing until we have each used each word at least once. That way he gets a chance to practice reading and writing each word.

He asks to play this game every day after school. We also play this game for his spelling words practice.

How do you make sight words fun for your kiddos?