Sight word games are one of the best way to keep your child motivated to learn more sight words! Ask a young child what his favorite part of the school day is and he is likely to say, “recess” so this sight word game is inspired by a  popular playground activity: soccer. It’s addictively fun and sneakily educational.

Looking for more sight word fun?  Head to our shop and grab our best-selling Editable Sight Word Games!

Free Sight Word Soccer. So cool! {Playdough to Plato}

Getting Ready

To make the game, I gathered a few supplies:

  • Soccer printable available here
  • Scissors
  • Bottle tops
  • Glue stick

After printing out the soccer pages, I cut out the circle sight words.

Sight Word Soccer {Playdough to Plato}

Then I used my glue stick to attach one sight word to the top of each bottle cap. This one’s from an empty milk jug we had in our recycling bin.

Sight Word Soccer {Playdough to Plato}

Sight Word Soccer

Teachers often help children memorize sight words by having them spell it out loud, cover it and spell it again, and then open their eyes to check their spelling. Called “spell, cover, check”, this strategy is surprisingly effective. You will be using a similar procedure when you play Sight Word Soccer.

Have your child pick a bottle cap, place it in the center circle, and spell it out loud. In this example, your child would say, “{Are} A-R-E.”

Sight Word Soccer {Playdough to Plato}

Then ask your child to close his eyes and spell the word again without peeking. After he spells the word, he will open his eyes and check the spelling. If he spells it correctly, he can take a shot. Using two of his fingers, he will flick the top toward the goal. If all edges of the top pass through the goal without touching the sides, he earns a point.

If the top does not clear the sides, he must place the sight word back in the pile and try again later.

The next player then takes a turn spelling, covering and checking a sight word. The first player to earn ten points wins the game.

Writing the Words

Thanks to Shelisa over at Think Magnet, there is one more page included in the printable. Each time that your child shoots a sight word bottle top, he can record it on a T-chart with two columns: {Goals I Made} and {Goals I Missed}.  It’s an entertaining way to encourage your child to write the words too.

More Sight Word Games

If you liked this sight word activity, be sure to try our amazing Editable Sight Word Games in our shop!

Similar Posts

12 Comments

  1. My grandsons are avid soccer fans! So they immediately loved this game.

  2. This is so great. I love tricking kids into learning. This is a great way to do it. Thanks for sharing your ideas.

  3. Write more, thats all I have to say. Literally,
    it seems as though you relied on the video to
    make your point. You obviously know what youre talking about, why
    throw away your intelligence on just posting videos to your blog when you could be giving us
    something informative to read?

  4. I rarely leave comments but I wanted to say thank you for your format…putting the links to the right is brilliant and wonderful!

    1. Thank you for taking the time to say “hello”, Susan! It’s always helpful to hear feedback from readers. 🙂

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *