My five year old daughter’s attention span is short. She’s constantly running around all over the place, going from one idea to the next. Getting her to sit down and focus is difficult. I didn’t want to push her to hard into doing things she wasn’t interested in to the point in which learning became a chore and she loss interested all together. When it came to learning sight words she quickly lost interest, I knew I wanted to continue trying, without creating a situation in which resulted in a hatred for reading.
Her favorite game to play is hide and seek. Her one year old sister loves playing with her, as she keeps her eyes open and points me in the direction her older sister went in all while giggling. Whenever it comes my time to hide, I quickly go under a blanket in the most obvious place, because to be honest I hate hide and seek.
Eventually I found a solution to both problems. That solution came in the form of the game “sight word hide and seek.” It’s a simple game in which my daughter’s and I hide four animal characters a bird, hedgehog, rabbit, and a bear. Each animal is holding a different word. When found I simply ask her “what word is bird holding?” “what word is bear holding?” and so on. Until we’ve found all the animals and she’s read each word, then we hide them all over again. No matter who hides them I still ask her the same question. The best part is I make my daughter happy by playing her favorite game, without having to hide which is awesome and peak her interest in reading words in a way she almost doesn’t even realize that she’s learning.
The printable contains the four animals above. The printable itself has no words written on it because I personally didn’t want to print out tons of animals to cover the vast collection of words we will be working on. Also it’s a great addition to use when teaching the letters of the alphabet. Instead of words just simply write a letter on each. I printed each animal out on basic paper and simply laminated them that way they would hold up to the wear and tare of a one and five year old also I could easily write different words whenever I wanted with a dry erase marker. when I wanted to change them I simply erase the word and write something else. Super simple and saves on materials.
When my daughter is finally in the mood to sit down and read, 50 first sight word reader pack is what we read together, and it is helping her get to a point where she can read a book alone. The books are super simple a few words per page, and repetitive. Exactly what she needs to maintain her focus, they’re not to long that she’s over reading before the book is even over. And each of the sight words are used over and over again to the point that they start to stick with her and she retains the information. (I am a participant in the amazon affiliate program and get a commission off anything purchased from links above.)
Learning with Nana Hedgehog 