Sight Word Sunday! Tower of Power

Sight words are a super important part of the learning our kidlets do in their first year of school.  Due to their frequency in simple texts, and the fact that many can't be decoded by 'sounding out' the letters, it's so crucial that little learners have a bank of words they can recognise instantly when they're reading.  We need to work on sight words every day.  The only problem? Sometimes sight word activities can be a little *cough* boring.  Sometimes it's tricky to think of hands on, engaging tasks that our kidlets will be excited to try, and that also flash those important words in front of their eyes as many times as possible.  To help you out, I'm going to stop by on Sundays and share a simple idea that you can use to spice up your sight word teaching time each week!

First up, my all-time favourite sight word activity: Tower of Power!

All you need to play this game are a bunch of plastic cups with sight words written on them.  I use about 40 cups with 10 words per set - that way each word is seen and read multiple times.  Just give each group of kidlets the set that contains the words they need to practise.  The best way to store your cups is in empty Pringles tubes. :)  Writing words on cups is a great job to give parent helpers, too!

Tower of Power can be played in pairs, small groups, or individually. Kidlets take turns to choose a cup, read the word and add it to the tower.  If the tower falls, all the cups go back into the pile and the game starts again.  The aim is to have all the cups built into a tall tower!  I use this game as a literacy centre activity, then add it to 'Fast Finisher' tubs for the following weeks.

I hope you'll try playing Tower of Power in your classroom! Please let me know if your kidlets enjoy it. :)