Fine Motor Skill Fun with Sight Words

This post is written by contributing writer Becky @ This Reading Mama.

The moment I saw the idea of a poke page, I fell in love with it.  What a fun way to sneak in some fine motor work!  We started last year by using the letter poke pages from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  All of my kids loved them and would beg for more.  So, when it was time to create a reading curriculum for my 3 year old who already knew his letters and letter sounds, but still needed to focus on fine motor skills, I knew poke pages would just have to be a part of it!

He did so well with the sight word poke pages, for the first few weeks.  Then, the “magic” kind of wore off and I found myself waging war over his refusal to do them anymore.  I knew he still needed to work on the sight words while including some fine motor work, but I didn’t have the time (nor energy) to create something completely different for him.  So, I began brainstorming and collecting ideas to make some adaptations to change it up each week.

Here are 7 fun fine motor activities we’ve done with the same sight word poke page:

1. Oversized push pins – We had started poking with toothpicks.  When I added in the big push pins, he just “had” to try them out.

2. Construction paper – Tape a piece of construction paper to the back of the poke page and poke through both pages.  When finished, take off the tape and your sight word appears on the construction paper!

3. Slip it in a sleeve protector and trace the word with a dry erase marker – I encourage him to use the skinnier dry erase markers, like what you see in the picture, whenever I can to foster a true pencil grip.

4. Peel and place stickers on the word – Make sure the stickers are easy to peel! You can even encourage the child to place the stickers in a similar order as writing the word {starting at the top and moving down}.

5. Slip it into that sleeve protector again, creating a make-shift play dough mat.

6. Rainbow Writing– using different colored markers, he wrote the word over and over in different colors {again, encourage using the skinnier markers}.

7. Use Wikki sticks to spell the word – Wikki sticks are so fun and the perfect manipulative to encourage fine motor work.

The thing I like best about all the activities is that I’m accomplishing the same goals as that original poke page: 1- he’s getting repeated exposure to those basic sight words and 2-he’s having some fine motor FUN.  A win-win for everyone!

Is there something not working for you/your child in your homeschool?  Is there a way that you can take the same activity and adapt it?

 Becky Spence is a homeschooling mama to four little blessings. She is passionate about teaching, specifically literacy. She is the author of This Reading Mama, where she shares reading and writing activities as well as free literacy curricula and printables. You can connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google +.