Word-a-pillar!

I'm in the process of creating and updating my classroom.  One thing I need to update is my sight words.  We had about fifteen words added to our sight word list this year.  That means our list is now 120+ words long!  That's a lot of words for five and six-year-olds to be expected to learn in one school year.  How will I get my twenty-four kiddos to learn these words?  Meet Mr. Word-a-pillar!

I used this lil' guy last year and the kids loved him!  I hung him outside on the door frame so everyone could see the words we were learning and the ones we already knew.  Over the course of the school year, our caterpillar friend grew in size and the kids could visually see how much they had learned.  Before I placed a word onto his body, I would have the word hanging outside as a "password".  Each student that entered our room would have to point to the word and read it.  Once that word was mastered it would be added to our word-a-pillar and a new password would be placed outside the door.

Door = Perks of having the art teachers son :)

THIS STRATEGY COULD BE USED FOR ANY (elementary school) GRADE!  Many times, while I was standing at the door to greet each student in the morning, I would hear older students pass by reading our word-a-pillar just for fun!   You could put math symbols, put words/pictures and have the students define/identify them, put simple math equations (addition/subtraction), and a lot more!  The possibilities are endless.  

I'm in the process of creating the new fifteen words and other sight words I was already missing.  It's a lot or work to create but completely worth it.  I may post this as a hard-good on TPT in the coming days.  So if you're interested, keep an eye out! 

If you would like to make this on your own, print out your words with a clip-art circle around each one.  Six words should fit on one page.  The circle will help you cut them out once printed.  Next, cut out construction paper circles to mount your words on.  I use a circle cutter tool for this part.  After each word is mounted on a colorful circle, use contact paper or lamination to finish.  Voilà!  You have a word-a-pillar!

Not ready to do all that work? Hop on over to TPT and download this no hassle version!