They are so easy even the kids can paint them! 

Here’s how to make and play!

Pencil Themed Clothespins

This time of year is always a fun time to spark your child’s love of learning and school. Playing games inspired by back to school supplies help you kick off the school year with a focus on taking good care of all those products you just spent your money on.

Here’s how you can make simple but fun pencil themed clothespins with your child.  You can even make them personalized pencils for a special school work art display to highlight their special work this year.

One way to prep your child for reading success is to start off the year by working on the Dolch Sight Word List.

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Materials Needed for Pencil Themed Clothespins and Literacy Game

• Mini Wooden Clothespins 
• Shimmering Silver Acrylic Paint
• Acrylic Paint Canary Yellow
• Acrylic Paint Pink Parfait
• Paint Brush
• Scrapbook Paper 
• Scissors 
• Sharpie Permanent Marker Black
• Handwriting Paper
• wax paper or paper plate

Instructions for Pencil Themed Clothespins

1. Use the yellow paint to create the pencil by painting on both sides of the chunky clothespin covering 3/4 of the wood.  Be sure to also paint the sides too. Get your kids involved in this craft, it’s really easy and a fun memory to do together.

2. Then using the pink paint, it’s time to add the pencil eraser to the end of the pencil.  I made the end where you pinch the eraser portion so I could also paint the inside portion too.  Be sure to paint the edges on this task too pink.

3.  The last step is to use your silver paint to create the metal portion of your pencil.  The Shimmering Silver Acrylic Paint adds a special sparkle to the whole pencil craft which I highly recommend.  You can use it later in the year to create holiday crafts too, instead of using glitter.

4. OPTIONAL: You can paint a little black potion of the end for a pencil point, we left it off to make them easier to make.  Plus, if you really want your pencil painting to last you could also add an Acrylic Paint Sealer

Pencil Themed Sight Word Game

This can be a fun hands-on way to work on those high-frequency words for Kindergarten & First Grade! To create the pencil themed literacy game for sight words take your Scrapbook Paper and cut out with Scissors  24 squares.  They can be the size of around 2 inches by 2 inches for easy handling, you go make them smaller if you’d prefer. Add a few more if you’re planning to do spelling words for those double letters in words like the word “that.”

Write one letter per square with your Permanent Marker Black.  You can do it with your child watching you write the letters and discuss letter formations for younger kids OR I would have my child do it and have an alphabet chart on the table close by so that they can work on proper letter formations with you watching their handwriting skills.

Once you write all of the letters, it’s time to play!  You can start off with letter writing practice by choosing a letter card and putting it onto the Pencil Clothespin as a stand. 

Next, you can move to practice forming word families like choosing the word family -at and then selecting a few letter cards that would go with it like s, c, m, p, f, r.  Then challenge your child to see if they can read those words.

This activity would be ideal for spelling word practice too!  Have your child gather the letter cards and place them onto the Pencil Clothespins and then write them out on their Primary Handwriting Paper for spelling word practice in a hands-on way.

You can have them practice writing down each word that they made with the pencil themed sight word game!

Literacy Game with Pencil Clothespins

• Work on Spelling Word Lists
• Word Families
• Alphabetical Order
• Matching Upper Case to Lower Case Letters

Did you know that sight words make up around 75% of the words used in beginning children’s print materials? Sight words can give your child a better start in learning to read.

If your child is able to quickly recognize sight words then as a beginning reader they will be able to spend more time concentrating on the meaning and comprehension of the words as they read them instead of having to decode every single word.

Learning Materials for Back to School Writing

• My First Pencils Large Round
• #2 Pencils Box of 96
• Primary Handwriting Paper

Learn now Why You Should be Using Beginner Pencils for Handwriting Practice with young children.

Can’t wait to hear how your child’s pencil themed clothespins turn out and how they use them at your house. They would be a cute little teacher gift idea for their teacher too. You could even attach magnets to the back to create pencil themed magnets for their classroom.

You may also enjoy these activities with your child…

More Sight Word Games for Kids

• Sight Words with Glass Gems 
• Sea Shell Sight Word Game 
• Pumpkin Sight Word Game with Sensory Bottle 
• Fish Themed Sight Word Game

Want the best pencil to learn to write? Here’s our favorite!

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Learning Objective:  Recognizing and reading sight words.

Sight words are the most common words that readers will encounter throughout written text.  Some of the first sight words that children learn to read by memorizing are: I, am, my, me, she, he, said, you, and, the, they, live, love.

The Dolch word list is a well-known list of some of these common sight words for kids to know.

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Materials Needed for Finding Sight Words with Dory Sensory Bag

• 1 Gallon plastic bag
• 16 oz. Clear styling gel (We got ours at the $1 store)
• Glitter glue (optional)
• Small blue plastic fish
• Tape
• Scissors
• Blue construction paper

Directions to Make Finding Sight Words with Dory Sensory Bag

Open the bag. Fill with clear styling gel and a little bit of glitter glue.

Add the plastic fish with the gel.
Close the bag. Tape shut.

Write the sight words on the blue construction paper. Draw a shell around them.

How to play Finding Sight Words with Dory Sensory Bag

1. Put the sight word paper UNDER the pre-made sensory bag.
2. Call out the sight word.
3. Let your child push the fish into the shell with that word in it.
4. Repeat until all words are called.
5. Then switch. Let your child call out the words and you swim the fish onto each shell.

Variations for Finding Sight Words with Dory Sensory Bag

• Select a word family. Write the word family words inside each shell. EX: cat, hat, bat, rat, mat, pat.
• Write words that make up a sentence. Say the sentence and have your child push the fish onto the words in the sentence order.
• Have your fish travel through “letter” pipes.

Click for direction on how to make and play Swimming Letters with Dory Sensory Bag

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We look for summer camps that kids love but still look at what they will take away from the camps as far as learning new skills, too. One focus that we want kids to keep is their language development and reading abilities.

Here’s a fun sight word game that is summer themed that your child will love! And it will give you a great use for all of those shells collect this summer!

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Seashells Summer Sight Word Game

• Sea Shells
• Scrapbook Paper
• Sharpie Marker
• Cloud dough or Kinetic Sand
• Plastic Bin

Summer Sight Word Game Game Directions

To create, first gather some sea shells from the beach or even at your local craft store Or grab some Sea Shells on Amazon. You will need at least 26 shells for each letter. Now it’s time to research the words our child should be working on.

Here’s a list of Dolch Words or Fry Words for each grade level from Kindergarten to Third Grade.

Use the words that your child should be working on and write them down on a sheet of paper with your child. 

Here’s a blank circle template for printing.  Then attach the circles to a few funs pieces of scrapbook paper to make it colorful.
 

 
Next take the seashells and add with your Sharpie Marker all of the letters of the alphabet onto each shell.  Put the shells in a fun container.  We added ours to some colorful cloud dough we created recently. 

Sand would be fun too to use in the container.

For more ideas you may enjoy this Coral Reef Activity for Kids!

 For the Summer Sight Word activity encourage your child to spell on the sight words using the shells.

It’s time to search for the letters needed to create the site words on your game board. Create enough words so that you can switch the search around too!

Click here for additional Sight Word Games or Follow our Sight Word Board on Pinterest.  

 
For more Literacy Sea Shell Activities you may enjoy:

• Rainbow Shells
• Alphabet Fun with Shells
• Storytelling Shells
• Shell Necklace

Here’s how to play. 

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In our book 100 FUN  & EASY LEARNING GAMES FOR KIDS we wanted to create games using items that kids are naturally drawn to.  Sand and seashells are one of my kids favorite things to explore when they are outside.  

We even made a sight word game with shells from our adventures last summer. For this game kids gather some sand and shells to create a writing game.

It’s perfect for practicing sight words to avoid summer slide or to practice writing letters to get them prepped for Kindergarten and Preschool.

Here’s how you make and play my game called Words in the Sand which you can find on on Page 62 in our book.

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Kids Writing Game with Sand and Seashells

Find hidden words on seashells in the sand to encourage your child to learn to read. Players quickly memorize each word by writing it into the sand in a texture-rich experience. This multi-sensory game helps to engage children’s senses as they learn their sight words.

Focus Skill: identifying and writing sight words

Materials

• Permanent black marker
• Seashells
• Sand
• 2 plastic containers or trays

Directions to Make Kids Writing Game

1. Write sight words onto seashells.

2. Place the seashells in one container.

3. Place sand in the second container or tray.

Directions to Play Kids Writing Game

1. Players take turns pulling seashells from the container.

2. Once they’ve selected them, players identify the word and write it in the sand container.

3. Continue to play until all the word seashells are discovered and written in the sand.

Game Variations

In our book 100 FUN & EASY LEARNING GAMES FOR KIDS we share 3 variations for every game in the book .  We want to be sure once you create a game it will last.  Here’s the 3 that are featured in the book.

• Create letters in the sand for younger players to discover and write.
• Form words from letter shells in the sand and write them in the sand container.
• Write numbers on the shells for players to discover and write.

Kids Writing Games

Keeping kids writing all summer long is so important to help them maintain their skills that they’ve worked on all school year long.  Plus it will give little ones more confidence as they start school too.  

You could even extend this game to practicing how to use cursive for your older kids, trust me they need practice as they don’t receive the lessons that we all received in school as much.  

Here’s all of our writing activities for kids at The Educators’ Spin On It.

100 Fun & Easy Learning Games for Kids

Be sure to grab a copy of our new book to also see a few more ways to learn outside with! Here’s a couple to flag in the book for ocean theme fun this summer.

• Squirt the Letter Fish Page 23
• Word Family Beach Ball Toss Page 45
• Mystery Words with Sand Page 75
• Storytelling Seashells Page 78

You can learn more about our new book and where’s it’s available by clicking on this link.

100 FUN AND EASY LEARNING GAMES FOR KIDS: TEACH READING, WRITING, MATH AND MORE

100 Fun and Easy Learning Games for Kids: Teach Reading, Writing, Math and More With Fun Kid Activities is here! We cannot wait to share it with you our educational book for parents and teachers of children ages 3-7.

In our book we have a entire chapter creating for teaching kids about both handwriting and story writing with kids.  All super easy and fun so that you can spend time together playing while you’re sneaking in learning too.

May your summer be filled with fun games and activities that your kids will love!

Pool Noodle Sight Word Boat Races

Learning Objective: Read sight words.

Materials Needed for Sight Word Boats:

• Pool Water Noodles  cut into 1 inch strips *** This is an adult task.***
• Multi-Color Construction Paper 
• Scissors, 5-Inch
• Permanent Markers
• Straws cut in half
• Packaging Tape

Directions to Make the Sight Word Boat Racing Game:

To Make the Mast / Flags:

1. Cut the mast out.

2. Write the sight word on the mast.

3. Place a long piece of tape down sticky side up, a little more than twice the length of the mast.

4. Set the mast down.  Place the straw next to it.

5. Bring the tape over to cover both sides of the mast.

6. Press to seal the edges.

To make the boat:

1. Use the open end of the straw. Twist and push to make a hole in the top of the cut pool noodle.

2. Write the matching sight word on the boat.

How to play:

1. Choose your pool noodle sight word boat.

2. Hold it at the starting line. One player calls out “On your marks, get set, GO!”

3. All the players race their boats to the finish line without touching the actual boat with their hands.

* Make sure the tape is sealed tightly or the paper may get wet! You can substitute in craft foam for the masts as well.  We just didn’t have any in the house!.

Pool Noodle Learning Activities for Kids

We have several Pool Noodle Learning Activities that you might also enjoy.

• Build a Word Tower with Pool Noodles 
• Pool Noodle Sight Word Boat Races  (You’re Here)
• 15 Pool Noodle Activities for Kids 
• Giant ABC Beads with Pool Noodles 
• Pool Noodle Boat Matching Game 
• Pool Noodle ABC Basket 
• Base Ten Basket with Pool Noodles 
• Pool Noodle Alphabet Order Obstacle Course 

Click on the images below to see how to make and play these pool noodle learning activities! 

Which Pool Noodle Learning Activity will you try first this summer?

Use color words and lids for a hands-on rainbow activity for kids.  Here’s how to play.

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Rainbows are so much fun to make, eat, play, find, and learn with. We had a tot-school with a theme of rainbows and I was trying to decide what to bring when I thought of my Baby Food Pouch lids. These things are amazing and so colorful that I knew my rainbow activity must make use of them!!! ( I will never buy Counting Bears manipulatives again)

Learn to Read Color Words with the RAINBOW!

The lids are

• Free
• Stackable
• Eco-friendly
• Plentiful
• Easy to come by and
• Colorful

Want more fun? Try these 8 activities with lids!

Using my bag of lids, I quick traced around a cap and made a bunch of circles in the shape of a rainbow. If you look closely at the pictures you can see these pencil lines. (I’ve learned that kids don’t need perfection to have fun and have stopped stressing about having everything look “pinterstingly” perfect – life is just too short) 

Then, I traced each pencil circle with the color and wrote the color word in the circle.  I wanted this activity to be about matching AND learning to read the color words!

I may introduce this to my three year old like this…

“Today we are going to make a rainbow on this paper.  There are some words inside of each circle that will help us figure out which color circle to put here. Each word is a color word.  Look at this one, (point to the red one)  I see a short word inside of the circle and it is in the color red.  I bet this is the word red. (place a red cap on the circle.)  Can you find another red word to put a cap on?”

This is more of the “whole language” approach to this activity. Since I am part of the teaching crowd that believes in a mixed approach to teaching reading, I would also encourage him this way…

“Another way you can figure out or read the color word is by looking at the first letter in each word.  The letters and the sounds they make will give us clues.  This word starts with a “b.” (point to the word red again) I think of the sound that b makes, [b] and I get my lips ready with that sound [b]. What color word do you know that begins with the [b] sound?”

We then continued reading the color words and placing the caps on our rainbow until it looked like this.

After we were done, I had my 3 year old put away the colored caps and read all the color words to me.  He was very proud!!!

(After the kids did it, I realized there are white caps too and should have made circles for them too.  The kids just put the white caps ON the cotton balls and asked why they didn’t have circles.)

Rainbow Collage

Then we moved onto a more creative activity in which I just provided him with the cut papers in the Muffin Pan and let him make what ever he wanted. 

***Remember, mixing up your activities lets your kids experience different kinds of learning. 

Don’t forget to sneak in a few rainbow books into your home library too for extra rainbow fun with your child after doing these activities.

Want more? Get our list of Colorful Rainbow Books for Kids.

Need some more ideas on how to play + learn + make rainbows???

Additional Rainbow Activities

• Rainbow Activities for Preschoolers
• Rainbow Sea Shells 
• Drip Painting Rainbow Name Craft
• 100+ Rainbow Activities
• Rainbow Poem and Craft for Mother’s Day 
• Rainbow Collage with Food Pictures 
• Rainbow Recipes Ideas 
• Rainbow Fruit and Veggie Book with Printable
• Rainbow Heart Paper Bag Book and Activities

You may also enjoy these activities with your child…

Print out your spelling words and grab a few bags of ABC Beads at your local craft store and it’s time to PLAY!

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This spelling game was inspired by the book Little Cloud by Eric Carle as part of our Weekly Virtual Book Club for Kids.

Little Cloud by Eric Carle

Cloud Themed Spelling Word Game with ABC Beads

Here’s the type of ABC beads that we used for spelling words for this activity.

We grabbed our playdough from the Monster Math early this month to make it even more hands-on and kid-friendly fun. There are all sorts of alphabet beads, so have fun with what you choose. Here’s the type of beads we used.

Roylco Lowercase Letter Bead, Assorted Colors, Pack of 288

Creativity Street Alphabet Beads, Uppercase, 288-Pack

Once my daughter had her spelling words for the week I had her sit and write out the word cards for the game which gave her practice writing the words out.

I like to keep scrapbook paper in our supplies to create quick and easy games with kids like this one with clouds.

Cut out the words into cards that you can draw to build. Then you can take the Letter beads and build each spelling word.

For more practices, you can even Create Your Own Spelling Dictionary.

Rainbow Spelling Words

The next day you can have your child create rainbow sight words with the letter cards so for more practice. And then play the ABC Beads Spelling Game again.

Finding playful ways to practice spelling words in important for your younger students. It provides a multi-sensory experience for them to help learn a few styles of learning.

You could even take the beads the next day and create a little tossing letters with their hands game.

Encourage them to call out each letter as they toss it into a bowl for a spelling word!

Spelling Word Activities for School Ages

• Turkey Sight Word Game
• Spelling and Vocabulary Resources 
• Spelling Fun with Gems 
• Sight Word Wall 
• Owl Themed Spelling Game
• Sight Word Games
• Wordle Spelling Word Practice 
• Sight Word Pinterest Board 
• Sight Word Activities for Kids

After School Spelling Words Practice

Now it’s your turn to share what you’ve been doing with your kids at home after school.

We’re working on our Colors! We made a Color Book that uses various learning opportunities to learn how to identify, spell and read Color Words in Hindi. We created Paper Bag Book using Hearts, English, and Hindi Color Words.

You can make your own Paper Bag Book too with ANY language!

Paper Bag Color Word Book in Hindi

Supplies

For our Hindi Paper Bag Color Book, we grabbed our supplies

• 5 Paper Bags
• Stapler
• Glue
• Scissors
• Colored Hearts
• Magazines

Directions

To create the book we cut off the bottom of the paper bags to create more openings and also to create our containers to sort our hearts into.  

Then we stapled the book together and covered it with a Valentine’s Day Napkin that we had around the house.

The next step was to cut the Hindi words and glue them on to the book and attach the English Words onto the Hearts.  We also glued the Hindi and English words onto the Paper Bag Containers for sorting colors.

We will also practice writing the color words over the next week on the Paper bags using Markers and Crayons to create more multi-sensory learning. Add to this activity by cutting out pictures from a recycled magazine that related to each color throughout the week and then placing it into our color containers made from the bags.

We also cut out the Hindi Letters so that we can spell out each color word in Hindi. We used these letters Printable Hindi Letters  .

You could very easily do this with just English letters to practice learning how to spell color words or another language. 

Here’s how we use this book with our Afterschool Express with Colorful Heart FUN .

Hindi Resources for Kids Learning

• Online Color Flashcards
• Hindi Words
• Printable Hindi Letters

Found this article about Color in India while searching for Hindi Colors and thought I’d share.  I can’t wait to celebrate Holi soon with our family and friends!

India is a land of colors. A multitude of colors can be seen in the terrain, the sky, the water, and the culture of the people. In fact, a full festival, the festival of Holi, dedicated to color, is celebrated in the month of March every year. Everyone is covered with color, irrespective of their age and status. A lot of meaning is attached to color in India.

In fact even the days of the week have their preferred colors. White clothes are recommended for Monday, Orange for Tuesday, Green for Wednesday, Yellow for Thursday, Red for Friday and Black for Saturday. Red is the color of the bride and the state of being married. Married women can normally be seen with a red dot (bindi) on their forehead. White represents purity, Orange is the color of saints, Green is the color of prosperity.

People in India love color. Color is used effectively to represent various moods and emotions.

Hope you have fun creating your own Paper Bag Color Book. We’d love to see what language you create with your Paper Bag Color Book with your Bilingual Babies!

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Mitten Sight Word Games

Learning Objective: Recognize and read basic sight words.

More about Sight Words:

You may see many matching games for kids to play. 

That is because they are some of the easiest games for young learners to play and require children to look at how the word is formed and find the match to that shape. 

The word “the” for example is made up of three letters two tall and one short.  The first two letters are made with sticks and the third has curves.

With sight words, children learn the words with memorizing them, rather than sounding them out based on the phonics rules.  These words also happen to be the most common words in written print, making learning to read sight words, an essential part of learning to read.

Some children may remember these words after a few times while other children need upwards of 300 or more times hearing and seeing these words in print to remember them.

Sure, 300 times may seem like a lot of times to tell a child that the word {the} is the, but if you do a few activities every week over the course of several months they will gain familiarity and confidence in reading sight words.  As their confidence increases, use these words in sentences. 

Have them help read the words in books. As you read out loud, stop, point to the sight word, and let them say it.

Games and activities that are fun, make practicing reading the sight words much more enjoyable. 

The key to this game is to read the words out loud so that children can begin to connect the oral word to the written sight word.

Sight Words for Beginning Readers 

I like to start with the following sight words: 

• I
• see
• my
• me
• like
• we
• on
• the
• an
• a
• and
• it
• to
• me
• go
• you
• is
• play
• he
• she
• said

Mitten Sight Word Games 1

In this game, children match colorful note cards with sight words on them.  Using a clothespin brings in some fine motor strengthening as well. 

Materials Needed

• Mitten sight words printed on card stock
• Scissors
• Yarn
• Clothespins

*Make mitten clips by tying one end of the yarn to 2 clothespins.

Directions

1. Cut the mitten sight words out. Place them in a pile near the middle of the table. Set the mitten clips nearby.
2. Have them draw a sight word mitten from the pile and read it out loud. Clip it to one side of the mitten clips.
3. Search through the pile to find the matching sight word. Clip it to the other side of the mitten clip. Repeat until all mitten clips are filled.

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Mitten Sight Word Games 2

In this game children scoop a sight word snowball up with mittens, read it, and put it in another basket.  A great game to put your mittens to good use reading!

Materials Needed

• White Ping Pong Balls
• Permanent Marker
• 2 baskets
•  Pair of Mittens

Directions
1. Write a sight word on each ping pong ball.
2. Put them in the basket.
3. Have the child put the mittens on and select a ball, read it and set it in the next basket.

* Add gross motor to this mitten sight word game by placing the balls further apart from each other.

Click now for more Winter Activities for Kids 

We’re sharing with you a special story and sight word activity to create special memories at home.

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Stocking Themed Sight Word Activity 

Sight words are so important to your child’s success in reading. You can research the words your child should be working on.  Here’s a list of Dolch Words or Fry Words for each grade level from Kindergarten to Third Grade. Spelling Words would be great for this activity too.  

Here’s a fun activity that will have your child playing for hours this holiday season and practicing their sight words again and again.  

Before you start bring meaning to the stockings for the holiday season by reading a special book about Christmas Stockings called Legend of the Christmas Stocking by Rick Osborne. We’ll be sharing a few more stocking themed activities this week too, keep watching!  Now it’s time to gather your materials and make this adorable stocking sight word game.  

Materials:

• Christmas Themed Paper 
• Black Marker
• Scissors
• Glue
• Pine Needle Garland 

Directions
1. Hang up the Christmas Garland in your home.  Make sure your child can easily reach safely.

2. Cut out stockings from the paper, older kids can cut their own stockings by tracing a template stocking first and then cutting the outline.  

3. Then cut out from a different type of paper the top stripes of the stocking and also the hanging portion.

4. Encourage your child to glue the hanging paper onto the stocking and then encourage them to glue the paper strip on top of it to help it stay in place.

5.Use sight word list to write out the sight words on each stocking. If you want more words you can write on the front and back of each stocking.

7. Encourage your child to hang the stockings up on the garland.

8. To make it more challenging have a stack of words to choose from and they have to find the match to hang up.

9. Time them to see how fast they can read and hang and see if they can beat their time.

10. Keep practicing those sight words over the holiday break!

Have fun playing with the Christmas Themed Sight Word Activity!  To discover more ideas on connecting Books and Activities check out the Christmas Read and Play Series.  Over 20+ Blogs are sharing ideas for Christmas with their favorite holiday books!  Click here to find out more!  

Keep watching all season long for more Christmas Themed Activities with Books!  

Until then you may enjoy these books to learn more about the legends of Christmas

The Legend of St. Nicholas: A Story of Christmas Giving

The Legend of the Christmas Tree

The Legend of the Candy Cane

Legend of the Christmas Stocking by Rick Osborne

For more Christmas Themed Sight Word Games {Click here} 

7 Christmas Themed Sight Word Activities 

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If you’re looking for more Holiday themed activities, explore these 50+ Christmas Activities for Kids

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