Finding Success With Ball Word Champs and Top Bananas
I always have said, if it’s not fun for me, then it’s not fun for my kinders. That was the whole reason I started using “Ball Words” to teach my kinders sight words years ago. That particular year I had a slew of boys and 4 girls. Sight words were boring and since my class was pretty high energy and even the girls were into games and sports, I slapped the first level of Dolch words on a picture of a baseball and told them that they were baseball words. If they could master all 20 words, they would be a ‘Baseball Champ,’ receive a certificate of recognition and get their name on the Baseball Word Champ poster.
I really didn’t think it would go much farther than that, but it did. They zipped through baseball words and wanted more . . . next was soccer . . . they mastered those . . . and then one more which was basketball. All of a sudden, instead of “resting” during rest time . . . they were snagging my ball words and practicing. I wasn’t getting ANY work done during their rest time because those darn kids had me too busy listening to ball words everyday.
Last year’s ball word posters.
It was fun and exciting and let me tell you the best part . . . they started encouraging and helping each other to pass ball levels. When one of their friends passed a level, they would ALL cheer.
Everyone loved the activities ( there are several games, an I-Spy, I-Spy Word bottles and more in each level) and everyone was working on their own level of readiness and finding success.
I could hear them even when they were working on writing refer to a word as a baseball word or a basketball word, so I started putting them up on the wall where they could refer to their spelling.
I knew I was on to something. I put a challenge down. If every single student could pass baseball (the first 20 Dolch words) I would throw a baseball party. It was a bit nerve wracking but they worked with each other and did it and the next level and the next and the next. That year, everyone in my class mastered at least 100 Dolch words but many went on to master all 220 and it’s been that way ever since.
I always assumed they would get passed a couple of levels and just poop out, but they never do. They keep plugging away through . . .
Baseball – Soccer – Football – Volleyball – Golf – Tennis – Bowling – Ping Pong – Hockey – Beach Ball 11 levels of Sports Balls. One for each level of Dolch Words.
(You can click on each individual word to see each packet above. They are also available at a discounted price bundled in Groups. Group 1: Top Bananas, Baseball, Soccer Group 2: Basketball, Football and Volleyball, Group 3 Golf, Tennis and Bowling, Group 4 Ping Pong, Hockey and Beach Balls
Since then, I’ve been able to develop some fun activities to go along with each level
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| Ball word and Top Bananas I-Spy |
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| Ball Words In a Bottle |
and I even started a Pre-Ball Word System for Letter Recognition called Top Bananas. I’m seeing my kinders moving right along. I have 17 Top Bananas to date. And just crowned my first two Baseball Champs.
I’m dying to get those last Top Bananas finished up (9 more to go) so we can have our Banana Split Celebration, but until then I’m scrambling to keep up with 26 kids that are wanting to practice. The good news is I have really great data on all them and can really see growth daily.
Oh don’t worry, I have a system for keeping those words fresh after mastering them too . . . Speedster Readers is all about fluency sentences. (Got to keep them on their toes ya know.) But I’ll save that one for another day. For now it’s all about the ball words. Yes, it’s alot of work, but my results have been great and more importantly, my kids love learning this way so it’s all worth it.
How do you make learning sight words fun? I’d love to hear how. Until then, I’m off print off some certificates for my new Top Bananas from Friday. Have a great weekend.
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Marsha Moffit McGuire
With more than 20 years of teaching experience, it is my pleasure to bring you my most favorite ideas and activities to keep young learners engaged and loving learning.
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