[Jule]

I'm cleaning out my room and gifting some stuff to other teachers. I have a set of 220 magnetic sight words that are fairly small, one inch tall with length varying depending on the size of the word. I've had them for years, but never quite figured out what to do with them. Do you think they would be more appropriate for first grade or kindergarten?

[Sbkangas5]

I think either grade could use them! I can imagine all sorts of independent centers I would have my kinders do with them.

[AussieBird]

Here's a game suggestion for pairs or a small group.

Have a timer ready.
Invert the word tiles on a table or board so words are hidden. Choose a suitable number ...not the whole lot. (*You might have them already in sets graded by level of difficulty).

Each player has a 'fishing rod' ( a magnet on the end of a string attached to a 'rod' such as a ruler)

A player fishes for an unseen word with the rod and if he reads it correctly he keeps the word ( consensus of the other players is usually good enough). If incorrect, he places it back somewhere on the table so the others don't see. Next player has a turn and so on .

The player with the most tiles when the time is up wins the round. Scramble the words again or choose another set for the next round.

*If they are Dolch Sight Words, you can download lists graded by difficulty level here:
http://www.havefunteaching.com/tools...ht-words-list/

[AussieBird]

More activities:
Place a set of magnetic words on, say, the side of a metal filing cabinet.
The child sorts them into 2 groups: words I know /words I don't know. Count the known words. Scramble the words and have another go, trying to beat the previous score for known words. if they are all known , move to a harder set.


For 3 children:

Place a set of words facing upwards on the side of a metal filing cabinet or similar. Ask a third person to call out randomly the names of the sight words on the cabinet, one at a time.

As the third person calls out each word, each player tries

to be the first to snatch the word from the collection. The

winner of the game is the person with the most words

when there are no more words left. ( These would not have to be magnetic, of course, but could be cards on the mat or table).

[AussieBird]

Words in context

Any number of children
Choose a suitable book to read
Magnetic sight words
Small magnetic dry erase boards, dry erase marker pens

Each child selects 3 sight words (or 4, or 5, according to age group) and places them vertically on an individual magnetic dry erase board. Explain that while the story is read they will hunt for their words that appear in the story and place a mark with the marker pen next to their word choice if it appears. Score one point for each mark. The winner is the child with the most marks when the book has been read. Discuss which words appear more/less often etc.

Example

the / / / / / /
when /
at / / / / / /

Score 13