File Folder Games

If you’ve been following our blog this month you’ll have noticed that we’ve been on a bit of Sight Words binge lately!  That’s because I’ve got two boys, a 1st grader and a Kindergartner who are in desperate need of learning these important words.

I’m afraid I’ve been a bit neglectful by focusing so much on word families, phonics and vowel sounds that they’ve missed out on some of the other more important aspects of reading.

Earlier this week I released a Dolch Pre-Primer game for Preschoolers, and Today I’m sharing this Dolch Primer game for Kindergarteners. It’s called, “Sweet Sight Words, ” and it covers all the primer words your child need to know by the end of Kindergarten.  (We also have follow up worksheets for every word here).

But before I get to that I need to tell you about our BRAND NEW Sight Word of the Week Curriculum:

Sight Word of the Week covers 40 key sight words for Preschool and Kindergarten students. Each week covers a single sight word with fun and engaging worksheets, activities, games and hands-on resources.  Students put their knowledge to the test with a weekly sight word mini-book that will bridge the gap between emergent and early readers.  Providing your students with a springboard to success with this ready to use program. The 40-week curriculum covers all 40 Dolch 220 Pre-Primer words and prints in the necessary order. Simply add the pages to a 3-ring binder and you are set!  Suggested Age: PreK or K4  Click Here for Sample Pages

How to Play:

First print your gumball machine gameboards onto colored construction paper.  I love neon cardstock for game as they are bright and engaging and much less expensive than printing in color.

Print your gumballs onto white cardstock then punch them out using a 1.5″ circle punch.  Note: Investing a a circle punch is one the best purchases I’ve made for our classroom and ALL of our Punch and Play File Folder games on File Folder Fun are designed with this size punch, so you can create many of our games in a matter of seconds with this handy tool.

Each child chooses a gameboard.  You’ll notice that there are special “Candy Gumballs” at the bottom of each board.  This is just a little extra fun to keep your little ones engaged!

The games starts by placing all gumballs into a center jar (or coffee mug) as pictured below.  You want to be sure this is not see through.  Children take turns by drawing one gumball, reading the word and looking for a match on their gumball machine.  If they have a match they get to keep the gumball and it’s the next players turn.  If they don’t have a match they return the gumball to the center jar and it’s the next players turn.  The game continues until one player has filled their entire gumball machine with matching words (candy ball included.)

You can speed up the game by allowing children to draw three gumballs instead of one.  Additionally, removing gumballs that match unused gameboards will speed up game play as well.  There are five separate gameboards, each with unique words so there are exactly the right amount of gumballs for all five boards.  You can expand this game for more than five players by printing an additional copy of the game.

Print Sweet Sight Words Free from File Folder Fun

Print Coordinating Worksheets Free from Kindergarten Mom