Super Simple FREE Printable Sight Word Game

My son is on the last of the seven lists of sight words he needs to memorize before year end. He is beyond excited to master these last 20 words. In support of this mission, I devised a simple sight word review game to make practicing fun.

Not interested in the same 20 words as us? No problem. One of the three pages on the free PDF is a blank game board. Just print it out and write on your own words!

Download the free PDF from Google Drive here. REMINDER: If you are a teacher and need to request access to my printables through Google Drive, use your personal email address. In many cases, your school blocks emails coming from outside their domain, thereby prohibiting me from granting you access and notifying you via email.

What You Need
PDF of the Say that Sight Word game board and die 
Heavyweight card stock to print the PDF on
Scissors and glue to cut, fold, and finish the die
A unique game piece for each player

How to Play
Each player's game piece should be placed on the words START. The youngest player begins their turn by rolling the color die. Whatever color they land on, they will move to the first occurrence of this color on the game board. They must also say the word there. If they don't get it right, help 'em out. 

Play alternates between players. The first player to reach the green spot at the finish is the winner!

How to Make Paper Flowers Bloom (Art + Science)

There are no flowers blooming here in the Midwest in January, unless you're at the florist. A thick blanket of crusty snow covers everything and temperatures are so frigid, only the very brave can be outside for more than 10 minutes.

To bring a little spring into our winter, I thought we'd try this fun experiment. It combines art and science in a truly awe-inspiring experiment.

Prep
I created a template of paper flowers for us to use. (Download it free from Google Drive here.)

Create
Once printed on heavyweight card stock and cut out, we used permanent markers to decorate our flowers.

When our buds were beautiful and bright, we put down the markers and folded each of the petals in to the center of the flower, making a nice neat little square.

Experiment
With a shallow bowl of water nearby, we carefully dropped our squares into the water (folded petals face up). Now, behold!

Within about 30 seconds, each of the paper flowers will open to display the beautiful colors added inside!

How Does It Work
As the paper begins to absorb the water, its fibers expand, forcing the paper petals to unfold.

This great activity came from 175 Science Experiments to Amuse and Amaze Your Friends by Brenda Walpole. It's loaded with fun and fascinating hands-on learning ideas! 

Top 15 of 2015: Deceptively Educational's Most Popular Activities

What a year it's been! I published 77 deceptively educational activities, games, and ideas in 2015. Here are the 15 most popular.

No. 1
Equivalent Fractions Missing Numerator Game

No. 2

Roll and Make Whole - Adding Fractions Board Game

No. 3

Color Theory for Kids (free printable color book)

No. 4

Button it Up - Beginning Addition Practice

No. 5

Climbing Mountain Climbers (Learning about Everest)

No. 6

Mean-Median Match-Up (free printable game)

No. 7

Simple Machines: DIY Pulley

No. 8

DIY Parachutes (and the Science Behind How they Work)

No. 9

DIY "Cave Paintings" (a Lesson on Lascaux)

No. 10

Why You Need to Use Soap (a Germs Simulation Experiment)

No. 11

Complete-a-Caterpillar (Phonics Game)

No. 12

Butterfly Garden (a Comparing Fractions Game)

No. 13

Egg Drop Experiment (Newton's First Law of Motion)

No. 14

Magic Linking Chain (the Science of Force)

No. 15

Beginning and Ending Sounds Word Elimination

I can't wait to see what deceptively educational ideas and activities await us in 2016!

Thanks to all who continue to follow our journey!

Walking Water (a Science and Art Experiment)

With three tumblers on the table, a measuring cup filled with water, paper towels, and food dye, I told my sons we were going to fill a cup with water without pouring a single drop in it.

"HOW?!?" they said.

"Let me show you!"

This experiment is simple. It did require patience, though. We prepared our cups in the afternoon and then watched throughout the evening and overnight.

How We Did It

Fill two identical drinking cups 2/3rds full of water. Put an empty cup of the same size between them. Squirt 8-10 drops of food coloring in the water-filled cups. We used yellow in one and blue in the other.

Now take a paper towel - we used a half sheet since we have the select-a-size rolls - and fold it the long way so the paper towel is about an inch wide. Do the same to another paper towel so you have two long flattened 1-inch wide rolls of paper towel. Fold them in the middle and put one end in the food dye, and the other in the empty cup.

Now observe what happens.

What Happens

The paper towel absorbs the water and in doing so, the colored water is transferred from one cup to another. When the two primary colors, yellow and blue combine, they make green.

Even more fascinating is how the water level ends up perfectly even among all three cups. The water has been evenly distributed! It took about 36 hours for our water to "walk" from each of the end cups to the middle and even distribute between the three cups. Have patience!

This great experiment came from Coffee Cups and Crayons. Stop there to see other color combinations!

Bugs on Parade {Printable Game to Practice Color Words}

Before the summer began, I jotted down a number of themes to explore while the boys were off school. Bugs was at the top of the list.

This fun little game helps kids begin to associate actual colors with the color words, and can either help familiarize kids or practice color sight words for those that are already learning phonics and have some early reading skills.

Bugs on Parade was a blast to make and just as much fun to play.

What You Need

PDF of the game board and die (download it here)

4 pieces of heavyweight cardstock, onto which you'll print the game board and die

Scissors, tape, and glue for assembly

Game pieces (we used different colored buttons for each player)

Prep

Pages 1-3 are the game board and because your home printer won't print full bleed (to the edge of the paper), you'll need to trim a little white strip so the board's space touch. Tape the three pages together. (For storage, fold the board in a z-shape.)

Cut apart the die. Score the lines with a butter knife and fold. Glue with a low-temp glue gun.

Note: The printable provides two die - beginner and advanced. For young children who are not reading, exploring phonics, etc. it's best to use the colorful die. No reading is required to play. Simply seeing the sight words over and over again will help reinforce learning. The other die does not contain colored sides; players must use their color words familiarity or phonics knowledge to read the die.

Play

All players must put their game pieces on the START lettering. They'll take turns rolling the die, reading the color word, and moving their game piece to the first occurring bug on the board of that color. If the player rolls "Lose a Turn" then play continues for the next player. If the player rolls "roll and move 2" they will roll the die and whatever color word is on top of the die, they must move TWO of those colored bugs forward on the board.

The player to reach the final yellow bug first wins!

Read

Want a perfect book to pair with this activity? Check out Jerry Pallotta's Icky Bug Colors book. Not only did it teach us about bugs, but it showed bugs in each color!

Black is black, right? Nope. (A Chromatography Experiment)

Because our color theory activity book was such a hit, I suspected a chromatography experiment would be as well. I was right.

My 9-year-old son and I both found this fascinating. 

I can think of loads of other adjectives to use to describe it too ... cheap, simple, fast, impressive ... heck, it was almost magical.

Supplies
Clear Drinking Glass
Pencil
Coffee Filter
Tape
Black Watercolor Marker
Rubbing Alcohol

Prep
1. Flatten and cut the coffee filter into a wide strip that's a little more than an inch across. Trim the ends to make a rectangle.

2. Tape one end around the middle of a pencil. Put the coffee filter pencil into your glass, so the top of the pencil ends rest on the rim of the glass and the filter hangs down into the bottom. Trim the coffee filter so it just touches the bottom of the glass. Remove.

3. Fill the glass with a 1/4-inch (or approximately 1 centimeter) of rubbing alcohol.

4. Draw a dot in the middle of the coffee filter strip about 2 centimeters (or a 1/2-inch) from the bottom. Your dot needs to be higher than the amount of alcohol in your cup.

Experiment
Place the pencil back on top of the cup so the bottom of the coffee filter touches the alcohol in the glass. 

Watch what happens as the coffee filter wicks up the moisture. How does it impact the dot? 

My son's hypothesis was that the dot would totally disappear. When he saw the dot appearing to move up the paper, he thought he might be on to something.

The more we watched, the more the dot changed. The pigments in the watercolor ink began to separate. First, we saw green, then pink and purple and even some blue too. I reminded my son about how we make black paint from other colors of paint. "Oh yeah!" he exclaimed.

The rubbing alcohol initiated chromatography, which (in layman's terms) is the process of a liquid or gas changing a mixture into its components, in this case through absorption.

By the end of the night, our black ink had moved all the way up the coffee filter strip. What a cool experiment!

This wonderful activity came from Science Experiments for Kids.

What Color Will Win? (Spin & Graph Activity)

My youngest son is really working on phonics but listening for beginning sounds still needs practice. This activity might not seem like a phonics activity but, believe it or not, it is.

What You Need

Small toy spinning top (ours came from the Dollar Tree)

Jelly roll (or other baking pan with sides) or a flat,shallow tub/box

2-page PDF of colors and graphing sheet

Paper

Marker or crayon

Prep

Download the PDF for free from Google Drive here. Print. Place the page of colors in your box/pan.

Play

Have you child spin the top and watch to see where its point lands on the color page. If your top doesn't move around much, try spinning it from high above the pan.

Wherever the top lands, your child must color in a box at the bottom of the graph. Here's where the phonics come in. When it lands, it's up to them to figure out which column to color - they do this by listening to the beginning sound and looking for the representative first letter in the color words on the graph.

I purposely did not put the words on the color page and make the words on the graph colored. In doing so, this activity is not just about learning colors and some simple math skills, it's also an exercise in phonics.

My 5-year-old had so much fun with this that his 9-year-old brother wanted to do it when he was done!

Color Theory for Kids {free printable color book}

I'm taking continuing education night classes in graphic design. A few nights into the class, we spent three hours on color theory. It was crazy cool and I had an inkling my boys might find it interesting too.

I made them a fun interactive book to complete. It explains the color wheel, primary and secondary colors, complementary colors, and tints and shades. We used our DIY marbleized paper as the cover!

Supplies

downloaded PDF of the book

heavyweight cardstock

crayons, colored pencils, or markers

pen/pencil

stapler

scissors

brad

unconventional paper punch

paint (red, yellow, blue, white, and black as well as any additional

    colors)

paintbrushes

Assembly

I've got two PDF files for you to choose from. The first is for those of you who want to print double-sided. Download the 6-page PDF here.

On the back of the PDF's page 1, print page 4.

On the back of the PDF's page 2, print page 5.

On the back of the PDF's page 3, print page 6.

For those of you who don't want to mess with figuring out how to reinsert the paper properly in the printer, here's another PDF for you to download. You can toss the cover page and just staple the pages in the corner like a short stack of activity pages.

Print pages on heavyweight cardstock since some pages require painting. Trim them along the dotted line. Use an unconventional paper punch to punch a hole in the page with the color wheel spinner as well as the arrow spinner. Cut out the spinner and attach to the color wheel with a brad.

To make the pages into a book, arrange the pages and fold in the center.  Carefully and loosely, trying as best you can not to crease the pages too much, fold under the back half of the book so it can fit in a stapler. Staple twice along the fold.

Now hand over the book and some art supplies and watch your kids learn color theory!

Note: If you're doing the book in one sitting, I recommend only using paint on the tints and shades pages, so that there's no down time for drying. My boys mixed the paint colors on the equations pages and then colored the answers in marker. I also used small clipboards to hold the pages open while they painted.

DIY Marbleized Paper

Our art projects have to have a serious wow factor. My boys don't have the interest or the patience to work on a piece gradually over several days. Mixed media that seems as much like magic as it does art is right up their alley.

Marbleizing paper is so much fun and surprisingly easy, too!

Before I provide a supplies list and instructions, I need to issue a disclaimer. This project stinks (literally, not  figuratively). You HAVE to work in a well-ventilated area. What you can't see in my pictures are the two windows that I threw wide open to dissipate the fumes. Nail polish smells B-A-D.

Supply List

Watercolor paper (or another paper of heavy weight)

Nail polish in as many colors as you'd like

A disposable pan that your paper will fit into

Water

Plastic to cover your work surface

Gloves

Well-ventilated space

Tool to swirl the colors with (we used the wooden ends of paintbrushes)

Instructions

1. Fill your pan with an inch or two of water.

2. Gently drizzle nail polish in the pan. The goal is to pour it thin enough that it sits on the surface of the water.

3. Add another color (or two or three).

4. Drag your tool through the nail polish until you get the desired effect.

5. Softly lay your paper on top of the water and press the corners slightly to make sure they pick up the color.

5. Carefully peel the paper off the water and set face-up to dry. We let our marbleized masterpieces dry for a full 24 hours and since they were still pretty stinky, I put them on our screened in porch outside. The more time passes, the less fragrance they emit.

There are lots of opportunities for learning with this activity. Talk to your kids about the history of marbleized paper, ask questions like "why does some of the nail polish stay on top of the water?," "Why does it cling to the paper?," etc.

Aren't they stunning?

Stop back later this week to see how we are using our marbleized paper!

Collect, Sort, Graph, & Count Fall Leaves

The Autumn foliage colors peaked here last weekend. We soaked in the opulence during a trip to a state park, apple orchard, and CSA farm. The family fun was a springboard for several leaf activities, all of which were fun.

1. Fall Leaves Hunt

The last leaf hunt my son went on, we packed some crayons and made rubbings. This time, we left the crayons at home and just let our eyes search out eight various types of leaves. (Click the picture below to download a free PDF of the ID page I made.)

I clipped a page with the names and images as a cheat sheet onto a mini clipboard. It was up to him to make tally marks or simply X through the names or images. We tucked the leaves in a gallon-size ziploc as we walked the trail.

2. Sort by Color and Make a Life-Sized Graph

I pressed the leaves between layers of paper towels (since a few were wet) under a heavy book. The next day, they were ready for us to use. I grabbed some leftover painters tape and made a big grid on the carpet in our living room. I made red, orange, yellow, green, brown, and purple cards as well as a numbered set. I placed these on the grid to complete our empty graph.

It took the boys no time at all to deduce what they were to do. They immediately set to work. "Is this purple or brown," they would ask each other. I loved their decision-making and how well they worked as a team to complete the graph.

When it was done, there was a three-way tie between brown, yellow, and red leaves. (This idea came from Little Giraffes.)

3. Sort and Graph by Type

When we'd finished our leaf color graph. We removed the leaves and the color cards, and I placed two other cards at the bottom of the graph: maple and oak. Now they graphed which we had more of. The clear winner was maple!

4. Arrange from Smallest to Largest

As they cleared the graph of the leaves, I grabbed several and asked our 5-year-old to put them in order from smallest to largest. He was a little lost at first but I asked him to "Find the smallest leaf" and it was removed. Again, "What is the smallest leaf now?" And so it went until we had them all lined up.

5. Preserve by Laminating

Lastly, the boys picked their favorite leaves from our collection and I put them in plastic laminating sleeves, running them through my personal laminator, to save and admire for weeks and months to come. They look like stained glass in our window! (This idea came from Mama Smiles.)