Sight Word Clubs!

These babies are reading up a storm!!!  WE LOVE JANUARY!!!!!

It's like all the hard work FINALLY pays off!  They come back from winter break, and the wheels are turning at full speed!  Thank........the.........Lord!!!

We started Daily 5 and CAFE last year around January.  We saw a ton of progress and were really happy with the trial run of these 2 reading components.  So...we started day 1 this year!  Working with our kiddos on the reading strategies, conferencing, and giving them time during Daily 5 to put it all together...has just been A-MA-ZING!

And to double our efforts, we put a TON of sight word work in too!  We work with our kiddos beginning early in the year...even before many of them know all of their letters.  We start with simple words like I, go, to, can, and see.  We play games with them, use them with word chants (click  to grab them FREE), and work on the words by rainbow writing, tracing, finding in sentences, and writing simple sentences.

We also have WORD CLUBS!!!  These are so stinkin' awesome!  The kiddos work really hard to earn their way into a new word club.  Here's how they work:

Our kiddos can read ANY 60 words on the Fry List 1-100.  They earn a gold medal and their name and photo in the class newsletter.  This is a great beginning level because ALL of our kiddos almost always make it into this club!  Everyone wins!

When our kiddos can read ALL of the Fry List 1-100, then they are in the club!  They earn a $1 coupon to spend at our school store and their name and photo in the newsletter!

Next we move on to the Fry List 101-200.  They are in this club when they can read both the Fry List 1 and 2 for a total of 200 words!  They earn ANY baked item of their choosing!  And we mean ANY!!!  We have baked cupcakes, brownies, monster truck cakes, from scratch lemon pies...you name it, we've baked it!

Once the kiddos know 200+ sight words, they start in the Accelerated Reader program.  Most of you probably are familiar with this, but it's basically a paid reading program where the books are leveled, students take computerized comprehension tests, and earn points.  Once our kiddos earn 5 points (10-5 books), they are in the club!

 We take them out to dinner ANYWHERE they want to go.....ANYWHERE!

 Well...almost anywhere!!  No fast food!!!

 And none of those places with the big 'ol buffets where you serve yourself...because people...that's NOT fun for ANY ONE involved!

We made this mistake once...ONCE!  We basically were up and down 100 times, getting food, finding new straws because the old ones fell on the floor, cleaning up spills...NOT........FUN.........AT.......ALL!!!

We learned our lesson!

 Now it's only fine dining for us!  That's right...REAL restaurants that serve steak, seafood, lobster.......ok.... so the kiddos ALWAYS order chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese, but WE eat like queens!!!

We used to take them out 1 at a time, but that got waaaaaaaaay too expensive, so now we let a few of them make it into the club and then we let them pick a restaurant together and have a BIG ol party!!!  This way, we only end up going out 3 or 4 times with 3-6 kiddos in each group!

Well, we hope this gives you some ideas for ways you can get your kiddos
 motivated to learn those sight words! It really is awesome.  All of our kids cheer each other on and encourage one another to do their best!  We celebrate together!!!