We’ve done quite a few sight words activities on this site. What’s cool is that the activities that we did with my now second grade daughter are still fun and working great with my kindergartner son this year. Today, I’ve got a sensory sight word activity using Cloud Dough.
Adding a tactile (and sensory) approach to sight words may just help the memorization of words “stick”. We made this cloud dough that was brightly colored and smelled great using a few materials we had in the house.
Cloud Dough Recipe for Sensory Exploration
To make the cloud dough, we used just a few ingredients (Affiliate links are included in this post):
3 cups Baby Powder
1/2 cup Baby Oil
2 sticks of Sidewalk Chalk
Mix the baby powder and baby oil with your fingers. Use a Kitchen Mallet
to crush the chalk into dust.
to crush the chalk into dust. This is an EXCELLENT proprioceptive activity that the kids really got into. Smashing that chalk into smithereens requires a lot of muscle power and “wakes up” the muscles to the heavy work of pounding that hammer. Try this pounding activity before a quiet and calming activity like writing.
Sprinkle the chalk dust into the cloud dough and mix by hand. You can play with the cloud dough without the chalk dust, but we wanted a bright blue color.
It took us a little bit of experimentation, (and blue hands), but we found out that mixing liquid food coloring into the cloud dough (even mixed into water or mixed into extra oil) will not give this sensory dough a bright color. Instead, you’ll end up with dyed hands.
Now, start playing!
Cloud Dough Sight Word Activity
Cloud dough is very fun. It’s moldable and a great sensory dough to explore. We decided to add sight words to this sensory bin. I used bright index cards to write out Kindergarten sight words. We cut the words into smaller sizes and hid them in the cloud dough.
To play sight word games with Cloud Dough:
Write two sets of sight words. Play different games. Some of our favorite games to play with sight words can be done right in the cloud dough:
- Play Memory with the sight words in the cloud dough. Hide and turn the sight word cards in the dough. Take turns looking for matches.
- Scatter one set of sight words in the dough and the other set outside of the sensory bin. Take turns quickly looking for matches of words.
- Create small balls of cloud dough. Push the cards into the dough and stand words up. Ask your child to read the words and smash the cloud dough balls. This game is always a hit with the kids.
- Play Hide and Seek for sight words in the cloud dough.
We love creative sight words activities! Here are some of our favorite ways to work on name practice in kindergarten through hands-on play.
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