Yesterday was the last day of school for my kids. I know a lot of people love summer and having the kids off and I am no exception. My husband is a school a teacher, so I only have to worry about child care for a few days right when school gets out and the last week of summer vacation. I also love getting to work early since I don’t have to get the kids on the bus and leaving work at a “normal” time.
The reading teacher at my kids school always sends home these amazing packages with homemade games. My kids play them all summer long and have no idea they are re-enforcing all the reading, spelling and math skills they learned over the past year. I wanted to share the game we played last night.
Supplies needed:
- Paper (at least 10 pieces)
- Printer and/or marker
- Dice
- Game pawns (erasers)
Our is drawn on an 8 x 11.5 inches piece of paper. You can get creative and use any size paper or tape pieces of paper together to make a bigger board. Draw your board any way you want. Next, randomly marks each square with an R, S or other directions. The other directions can be anything you want. Our board has:
- Move back one space
- Go ahead 5, than back 3
- Yes, you have to wait 1 turn
- Move ahead 1 space quickly
- No, you must go back 1
- Oh, no, go back to start
- Move ahead one space
At one end of your board, write “start” and at the other end write “finish.”
Next, printed off the sight words your child learned this year. We cut the paper into “cards.” Divide the cards into a two piles (one is Read and one is Spell). Included in the package was a dice, which is needed for this game and different shaped erasers to use as markers/pawns.
Now that you created your game, it is time to play. The first player rolls the dice and moves accordingly on the board. If the player lands on R, they must pick the top card from the Read pile and “read” the word. If correctly read, the player keeps the card (this will keep track of each players points).
If the player lands on S, the player to their right picks the top card from the Spell pile and asks the player to “spell” the word. If spelled correctly, the player who spelled the word gets to keep the card.
If the player lands on a direction square, they must follow the directions. Player to the left goes next. Once all players have crossed the finish line, the players count the number of cards they have accumulated (by reading or spelling the words correctly). The player with the highest amount of cards wins.
Other hints: Google “sight words for free” to see all the websites that offer sight words by grade in a “printable” format. Or, create your own, even with index cards and a marker.
What learning games does your family like to play? I would love to hear all about them. Please let me know in the comments below. Have a great weekend!
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