Teacher Mama: Sight Word Practice Box

I am so excited to share this with you all. I created it this weekend after feeling disorganized with the “system” we were using to help my son practice his sight words.  I feel like we have a great collection of ideas, but keeping them all at the forefront of our minds just wasn’t happening. I wanted to create something that “contained” all our favorite activities, the words (current and past) themselves and anything else we might need for practice. I also wanted something that could be stored easily. So this is what I came up with…

Sight Word Practice Box

I still had a few pizza boxes left from making our pizza box drying rack a few weeks ago so I decided that the pizza box would be the base or station and everything else would fit inside.

Materials:

• a pizza box
• envelopes
• paper
• computer and printer
• scissors
• glue
• word list
• contact paper or laminator

How to Create a Sight Word Practice Box:

• I created labels on my computer for the four envelopes I was going to use and printed them on colored paper.

• I then created 4 envelopes using a template I found online.  You can easily use store bought envelopes as well. I used the Basic Envelope Template from Earth Mother Crafts.

• I cut out and glued the labels to the envelopes and then glued the envelopes in place inside the pizza box.  I put the “this week’s sight words” and “practice ideas” on the top portion of the box and “past words” and “extra cards for games” on the lower portion of the box. See photo below.

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Then I set to creating the cards for each envelope.

This Week’s Sight Words contains the cards with the words my son is currently working on. There are two cards for each word.

Past Sight Words contains all the sight words we have worked on prior to this week.  There is only one card for each word in this envelope. I used the same template as above.

Practice Ideas contains a set of cards and on each card is an activity that can be done using the materials in the box.  I have my son choose a card each time we sit down to practice his words.

   

Extra Cards for Games contains a second set of all the sight words we have already worked on for games that require two of each word (ie Memory or Go Fish).

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After all the cards were created, cut and put inside the correct envelopes, I gathered all our favorite sight word practice games and printed one copy of each for the box.  These have been laminated so we can use them over and over again with whiteboard markers.  Here are some of the activities I included in the box:

Sight Word Tic-Tac-Toe

Two Blank Game Boards

Roll a Sight Word Alien  (from Playdough to Plato)

Sight Word Parking Lot (from Juggling With Kids)

Also in the box:

• whiteboard markers for the games
• a die and playing pieces for the board games
• a sight word die for Roll a Sight Word Alien (see link for directions)

Helpful Links

Making your own dice:

• Teacher Mama: Creating your Own Die For Learning
• Boy Mama: How to Create Your Own Giant Die from a Paper Carton

Other Ideas for Sight Word Practice:

• Teacher Mama: 10 Great Ideas for Teaching Sight Words
• Teacher Mama: Two Fresh Sight Word Practice Ideas
• Teacher Mama: A Game Board for All Occasions
• Teacher Mama: Sight Word Practice Made Fun

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