Sight Word Games for First Grade Build Santa’s Beard

Sight word practice is so important in those early years of school – even in preschool. These sight word games for first grade are perfect for revising any taught sight words throughout the month of December. These sight words include an editable page where you can add your own sight words to the mat. 

Students will love the Santa theme as they roll and cover to build Santa’s beard. Do your students love using dice? These mats incorporate dice and a some cotton balls.

I would also laminate the mat for repeated use. The cotton balls can be placed in a little container On the side as the kids complete the sight word mat.

Reading sight words

It’s no question that the more students are exposed to sight words, the better they learn them. 

Teaching sight words doesn’t need to be repetitive. Using games, printable and hands on activities will help keep kids motivated to learn new words and practice sight words they already know.

Sight word roll and read 

This mat is best practiced by having the students roll the dice then find the word the number corresponds to, they will then read the sight word and find it on the Santa mat, then they will cover it. 

They continue this until the Santa  beard is covered. 

They can also play with a friend to read sight words and build Santa’s beard. 

How to teach sight words 

There are multiple ways to teach sight words especially now with the new Science of Reading method which I think is one of the best ways to target phonics and sight words (heart words). Learners are able to recognise the phonemes in each word to utter the sound it makes. 

Teaching heart words is a fairly new concept but it works wonders by allowing learners the autonomy of working out that there are parts in a word that may be difficult to remember.

So it would need to be memorised by heart (hence the reason for adding the heart on the heart words). 

You can modify the way you teach sight words by practising this as the students learn with materials they already have. 

Heart words 

For example you can adapt a worksheet you have on sight words but add the component of letting the students identify the heart sounds in each word (the sounds that are best memorised or tricky). 

For this particular printable, you can be sure that kids are learning their sight words by having them map out the sounds in each word as an added step to when they roll the dice then identify the word. 

Have them map the phoneme sounds in the word ‘said’ for example.

This word makes 3 sounds – ‘S’ ‘e’ ‘d’ and the ‘ai’ sound is the one that should have a heart on it because it is hard to remember and it is also irregular. 

Learning sight words with games 

Kids love games and teaching sight words is a recurring thing in the early years. Kids need repetition for them to learn common sight words.

There are some games I love to play, I like to also incorporate Playdough like I have below.

Playdough mats not only work on sight words but also on fine motor and sensory skills. They appeal to students because of the ‘added playful’ mats that otherwise wouldn’t be used without the dough.

You can get a free sample of these sight word Playdough mats here. 

Sight word games for first grade 

To prepare this sight word center, you will need a few materials:

• cotton balls 
• Laminator 
• The printable mats below 
• Dice 

The easiest way to keep games like this and preserve them is to laminate them however, you can still use them without laminating. 

Tell the students that they will be rolling the dice and then reading each sight word, then building Santa’s beard. 

They normally get so excited about this! Show them how to do it at first with a few turns. Then, they will get the hang of it. 

More sight word games and printable

• Sight Word Dab Worksheets Free Printable PDF
• Free Printable Flash Cards Sight Words Typing Game
• 7 Printable Sight Word Activities for Home Picture Puzzles for Bubble Day
• 3 of the Best Common Core Kindergarten Sight Words Worksheets and Activities

Christmas sight word game 

Grab the free printable below. 

Be sure to open the editable PDF in Adobe Reader DC.

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