Doing More With Less Since 1972

Tag: toys

Pop For Sight Words Game Option

One of the best literacy gifts Pea got for Christmas this year was the Pop For Sight Words game. It’s a pretty simple toy–a popcorn box filled with sight words printed onto little cardboard pieces of popcorn. There are also some instructions included on how to play the “official” game, but we haven’t played it that way yet. Instead, we’ve made up a bunch of different games we can play with the pieces of popcorn.

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Pea’s favorite way of playing right now pits her against us. She picks a word and tries to read it (preferably by sight, but we’ll let her try to sound it out). If she can read it within three seconds, she gets to keep it in her stack. If she can’t we get the piece. One important action to take here is to not just read the word and put it in your own stack. Make sure you show your child the word as you say it. Remember, we’re working on sight words here, so it really drives it home for them to see the word and hear it at the same time. The good thing about the words included with the kit is that many of them are really hard to sound out (“when”, “where”, etc.), so it really emphasizes sight word learning.

We play until we have 10 words in our pile–these are words that she could not read. Then we give her an opportunity to “steal”. We show her every word in our stack, and if she can read it she gets to steal it to her pile. Another option would be to wait until we’ve gone through all the words and give her only one chance to steal, and we may change to that option later. But by having a “steal” round every 10 words it gives her a chance to see and hear the words she’s having trouble with several times throughout the game.

At the end of the game, she gets to count all of the words in her pile (not a bad math activity either), and we keep a running score of how many words she’s able to read. We’ve seen some really good improvement, and we’ve noticed that the more often we play the game the more quickly her score rises. Repetition!

Note: the packaging makes this game very convenient and fun for the kids, but there’s no reason to purchase it necessarily. You could make your own sight word cards yourself. We’ll probably end up doing this ourselves in order to expand the number of words involved.

December Giveway…Straight Off Our Wish List!

Back by popular demand (and because some people are signing up for last year’s) we’re excited to announce this year’s giveaway. Last year’s giveaway was really popular, but we realized that we sort of limited the scope of it since it was a toy for a specific skill level. So this year we’re going to do something a little different…we’ll let the winner choose the prize.

This year’s choices are coming straight off our own shopping list for our girls, so you’ll know they’ve are Ana-approved!

Just as a side note…please don’t think limit our kids to reading and literacy toys. We’re only including those here because this is a reading site. They also love to play with craft toys, crayons/paint/chalk, counting and math games (that could be a whole different site), and anything with a Disney Princess on it. Now…let’s get to the choices!!!

Pop for Letters Game

We can’t wait to get this toy! There are so many fun things you can do with this! Memory match games for capital and lower case letters, shuttle runs (quickly becoming a favorite activity at our house) matching cases or sounds to letters, changing the first letter of a word to make a new word, etc. The possibilities are literally endless. Yeah…you could do the same thing with a few pieces of paper, but the fact that this is popcorn themed makes it way more fun and inviting for the kids.

Pop for Sight Words Game

Just like the Pop Letters game, but with sight words–endless possibilities! “Quiz games” with multiple kids to see who can read the word first, putting words together to make sentences, and once the kids can read all of these words you can play games for parts of speech sorting and spelling bees. You can even use the Pop Letter Game with this toy to create prefixes and suffixes for the sight words!

Pretend and Play School Set

Not necessarily a literacy game, but our girls love to play school, and the Pea just happens to teach Bug letters and sounds in almost every class since reading is her favorite subject. It really has helped drive home all the things Bug is learning, and we’re so excited the baby will hopefully have two teachers when it’s her turn to start school!

Silly Sentences

I remember Ana taking a long time to prepare for centers when she was a teacher so the kids in her class could play this exact game! It’s so convenient to have it made for you, and even better that the kids can go grab this game and play any time they want. Some ideas for extension activities are to have the kids draw a picture of the silly sentences they make or create entire stories based on the sentences.

How to Enter

That would be useful information, huh? Just like last year, all you have to do to be eligible to enter the contest is like us on Facebook. That means like us on our Fan Page, not like this post (although you’re welcomed to do that as well). We’ll randomly choose one of our fans at midnight on December 13, 2011 and contact the winner through Facebook to find out what prize they’d like to receive.

Thanks for your continued support this year. Merry Christmas!

December Giveaway – LeapFrog Fridge Words

If your pre-schooler is like ours, they love to be with you while you’re cooking. And if you’re like us, you spend a lot of time in the kitchen over the holidays. LeapFrog’s Fridge Words Magnetic Word Builder can help! This educational toy makes your time in the kitchen more hassle-free, especially if you put it on the side of the fridge or the dishwasher, which allows you to actually open the door without interrupting play. Even if you are just starting on word groups, you can seed the toy with the word ending for your child (“_at”, “_an”, etc.) and show your child how changing the first letter can make a brand new word.

We’re giving away one of these toys in December. All you have to do to be eligible to win is become our fan on Facebook. Really, that’s it! And if you don’t have a pre-schooler, don’t worry. This makes an awesome gift for Christmas or birthdays!

We’ll be selecting a winner at midnight on December 15, which should give us plenty of time to contact the winner and have the prize delivered before Christmas. It also gives you plenty of time to spread the word!

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