When I saw classic Valentine’s Day candy hearts with letters instead of words, I knew I could use them for multi-age learning with a sweet sight word activity. My 2.5 year-old is obsessed with his name and my 5 year-old, A, loves working on sight words. These candy letter hearts were a sweet way to practice both.
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Getting Ready
To prep for this activity, I grabbed a red, pink and purple sheet of cardstock. I cut out four hearts in each color for a total of 12 hearts.
Next, I wrote one sight word on each of my daughter’s hearts – making sure to space the letters so that one candy heart could fit over each letter. For my 2.5 year-old, I simply wrote his name on a heart.
I made sure both kids could successfully spell the word (or name) on their heart by sorting through the candy hearts for all the letters they would need and placing them in a bowl (one for each child). I did throw a few extra letters in each bowl to provide some challenge and give them a little sweet treat at the end of the activity.
Sight Words Activity: Spelling Words
My daughter, A, picked her first word, shouted out “his” and dug into the bowl of hearts searching for the letters needed to spell it.
She thought these candy hearts were hilarious because they didn’t have the funny sayings and giggled every time she finished spelling a word. Who knew sight words could be so fun?!
I didn’t plan on A gluing the hearts down, but she wanted to post these words in her room so I handed her a bottle of craft glue (white glue tends to melt the hearts). She carefully glued down each candy heart while I helped her little brother work on his name.
Sight Word Activity: Spelling Names
My 2.5 year old, Q, is usually napping when I do activities with his big sister, so he was thrilled he got to work right along side her. He was even more excited when he saw he would be spelling his name – and with candy no less! Q knows how to spell his name, but still struggles when it comes to letter recognition. I didn’t want to overwhelm him, so I only put the letters of his name and a couple other letters he recognizes into his bowl.
I asked him what the first letter of his name is and he enthusiastically replied, “Q!”
“Do you see a Q in this bowl?” I asked. He found the Q and I showed him how to place the candy Q over the Q written on the heart. We repeated this until he spelled his entire name and then I showed him how to glue the candies down. He was so excited, he could hardly wait for the glue to dry before begging me to hang it on his door. He loves his candy name so much he even resists eating it – a serious accomplishment for this kid!
Find More
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