Valentine’s Day Sight Word Spinner Activity {Free Printable}
Inside: This free printable Valentine’s Day sight word spinner activity helps children to learn any sight words in an engaging and enjoyable way.
Valentine season is upon us again and in our house, that means candy and baking! My children love to share their love with their friends with a little something sweet.
I designed this free Valentine Bakery printable as a fun activity for littles to help them with learning their sight words. You can sit and do this quick activity together while your Valentine cupcakes are baking in the oven.
Your kids will love being the one to spin and match the words, and getting those sight words under their belts now means easy reading of recipes later!
Valentine’s Day Sight Word Spinner
I’m sharing this free printable so that you can help your kids learn their sight words in a hands-on way. We all know Valentine’s Day gets their attention – who doesn’t love all that candy?
Why Teach Sight Words?
If you’re an experienced teacher, you’ll know that teaching young children to read is all about giving them strategies so that they can decode words and read them independently.
Some words, however, refuse to follow the rules. These are sight words. They can be really difficult for littles to sound out and, of course, they turn up in lots of books for young children.
High frequency words are also often lumped in with sight words too. While these words can be sounded out, kids need to be able to read them quickly and easily in order to read fluently.
When kids are ready to work on sight words (and high-frequency words), we like to use fun, hands-on activities to practice them.
Yes, memorizing sight words is the best way to learn them. But what kid wants to learn a boring old list? Use this adaptable printable instead!
Materials and Preparation
I designed this activity to be easy to prepare, making it the perfect activity for finishing off a busy week in your classroom.
You’ll need:
- A copy of the printable for each student or pair of students (scroll down to the bottom of this post to grab yours)
- A paper clip
- A pencil or a brad fastener for the spinner
- A list of sight words
First of all, prepare a list of sight words that you want to help your kids learn. You can teach eight at a time. Of course, you can use this printable again and again with different words.
Once you know what sight words you want to use, open the printable in Adobe Reader. Then just type your sight word list into the table on the second page.
Next, print your spinner sheet (both colour and black-and-white are available) and use a paper clip and a brad fastener to make a spinner.
Finally, print your choice of student recording sheet too, if you want your kids to write their words as well as read them. There’s a version that has the words printed in tracing dot letters and also a blank version.
If you want the accountability of a recording sheet for kids not quite ready to trace letters correctly, you could give them a highlighter and have them highlight straight across the words instead.
Activity Instructions
Ask your students to spin the spinner, then match the word they land on with the same word on the heart candies. We used mini-erasers to mark the words.
For a special treat, you could also let your littles use conversation heart candies.
After they find each matching word, they can fill in a recording sheet too.
Extend the Activity
We all know that some preschoolers love competition. Why not put your littles in small groups and have them compete in teams? This works really well if you have extra adults in your classroom.
For an extra challenge, have your kids write Valentine’s Day cards for their families. Let them use their strategies for spelling easy words (it doesn’t matter if they’re not quite right!) and focus on those sight words.
Not just for littles
This printable is fully adaptable so you can use it with children of all ages. You can even use it with older students for learning spellings of longer words!
More Valentine’s Fun
If you’re planning to spend a few days celebrating Valentine’s Day, why not check out my Valentine’s Day 1-2-3 Bingo?
Let your kids practice reading some Valentine-themed words with picture clues – and have some fun at the same time!
You also might like my Valentine’s Day sight word dice activity here on the blog. It’s another fun, hands-on printable for practicing sight words and high frequency words this time of year.
Grab Your Free Printable
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I really hope you enjoy it. Valentine’s Day is one of my favorite holidays. Let’s share the LOVE!
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