Crayons & Cuties In Kindergarten: Organizing my Sight Word Binder....Sight Word Mini Books...and a FREE Sample!

This summer I have been working to organize and add to my sight word binder so that I can implement sight word stations this year!

This is what my binder looked like when I brought it home in June:

I am embarrassed to show this, but want to 'keep it real!'

There were papers falling out- duplicates, torn pages and more!

It gave one of my ~~OCD~~ colleagues hives just looking at it!

So mid July I began to work on it...

I sorted all my materials by word- there were papers ALL OVER MY LIVING ROOM!!

I put each word's printables into a clear sheet protector with my Sight Word Take Home printable on top so that it clearly defined what word was included in that sleeve!

I typed and printed sight word cards. These cards will be used for sight word stick sorting activities as well as sight word letter bead building!

I also printed all the words I am required to teach onto a full sheet adhesive 'label' and then cut it up and stuck each word onto a manila envelope. The envelope holds all the center pieces so that nothing slips out of the binder!

I printed out all my new sight word resources that I created and sorted them by word and started putting in binders....my original '1' binder was now 5 STUFFED binders!

They still need 'covers'- I am planning on typing up which words are in each binder for easier reference during the year!

So this is what it looks like for each word:

There is a sheet protector that holds the take home paper, sight word practice page and sight word reader.

Then there is a folder that fits in the binder for each word. It holds the envelope that has the pieces for sight word sticks, sight word sentence building, sight word play dough and tracing mats, sight word detective cards and sight word building mats. The folder holds the printables that go with the center pieces, as well as sight word mini book, spin a sight word center and sight word letter bead recording sheet.

So now all I need to do is pull out the folder and sheet protector for the word I am teaching and I have all I need together in one spot!

One of the things I worked on for awhile this summer was these sight word mini books!

I wanted a little to no prep book for each word that had them work with the word, but could be completed in a 10-15 minute time frame.

After attending the I Teach K SDE Conference in Vegas, I learned about making mini-books! All they required was 1 cut and a little folding!

It got my wheels turning....

First I made a mini book for introducing my students to kindergarten...

(See my 'scrap paper'! I am such a visual person...I need to map it out first!)

And then I thought....I COULD USE THIS FORMAT FOR SIGHT WORDS!!!

So I worked on a template and started typing away...

Guess what...

After about 3 weeks I finally finished all 74 words that I am required to teach!

I had my soon-to-be-kindergartner give it a try!

First for assembly...

They are not hard at all! The only 'tricky' part is getting the paper to make the 'diamond' in humid NY weather!

Here is what the children will do on each page of the mini book:

They read the list 3 times- so they are reading the new word 9 times!

We used a highlighter because...well...they are COOL to a 4/5 year old...but BINGO daubers would work too-as long as they were 'gentle' with them...the only drawback might be that it doesn't dry before they turn to the next page!

We used crayons- I was afraid the marker would bleed through after multiple 'traces'! Colored pencils would work well too!

He made them 'fancy' with multi-colors!

If students needed some more help, you could write the word in highlighter in the first box (for them to trace) and then have them try it independently in the second box.

If you don't want to deal with scissors/glue, you could always provide magnetic letters, letter tiles, letter beads, etc for students to place in the boxes to build the word. They could then write the letters in the boxes after they built it!

The book was complete in about 10 minutes!

He now has it in his 'reading treasure chest' in his room!

Want to try it? I made the 'see' book a freebie for you to try:

Click either the picture above or cover below to find the sample!

Now I realize different schools teach different words, so before I made it a pack to sell on TpT, I made blank editable templates for 2-6 letter words so that you can add additional words to the words already included in the pack. It has links to the free fonts (for personal use) that I used so that your books can match the ones in the pack!

Here is the link to the full pack: