Eggs-elent Spelling* (black line master included)
Purchase miniature plastic eggs (I found an egg garland at the Dollar Tree and cut it apart). Print one letter on each egg to spell CVC words. Make several different Eggs-elent Spelling mats with different CVC pictures on each (I put 3 on each sheet). Place all letter eggs in a bucket. Provide students with small bowls to hold eggs and a scoop (plastic salad tongs or the egg dipping tongs work well). Each student takes a scoop of eggs and puts them in his bowl before passing the bucket to the next child. He then uses the eggs to spell words on his mat. When the bucket comes back to the child, he returns the unneeded eggs and takes a new scoop. Play continues until a child completes 3 words to be the winner.
Bugs*
Purchase plastic bugs or bug gems (I found mine at the Dollar Tree). Hide these in a bin of plastic grass. Provide each child with a bug mat with pictures of the bugs you used. To play, show each child a word (letter, number, etc.). If he correctly identifies it, he may dig in the bin for a bug. If the bug matches one on his mat, he places it there. If not, he returns it to the bin. The first player to match all bugs is the winner.
SWAT
On a large plastic tablecloth or shower curtain liner (from the dollar store), print a variety of sight words. Give 2 children a fly swatter. Call out a word and have the children race to “swat” the word first. The winner chooses a new person to be the swatter.
Ants’ Picnic*
To create this game you will need:
6-8 plates (I used plastic plates from a picnic set)
Plastic ants (about 6 dozen--I found mine at Big Lots)
A blank die to program
On each plate, print the numbers 1-9. On each side of the die print a direction (ex: take 1 ant, take 2 ants, take 3 ants, give 1 ant to a friend, switch plates, put 1 ant back). To play, children take turns reading a word/letter card. If they are correct, they roll the die and follow the direction. The winner is the first person to get 9 ants on his plate. **To make this game more appealing, I store the game pieces in a picnic basket and keep a small checkered placemat in the basket for setting up the game on.
Dominos Pizza*
Cut pizza pieces out of felt (crust, sauce, cheese, pepperoni, mushrooms, green peppers, onions, sausage, and pineapple). Label a spinner with each piece except for crust. To play, give each child a crust piece. Children take turns reading word/letter cards. If they are correct, they spin the spinner and collect the piece indicated. Each child may only collect one sauce and one cheese. The other pieces have no limit. The winner is the child with the most toppings on his pizza at the end of the game (must also have sauce and cheese).
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