Sunrise Readers Book 1 – Friends – More Word Games – Go Fishing!

All learners learn best when they are having fun! That’s especially true for young learners. Here is yet another game for teachers and parents to use when teaching sight words. These free downloadable resources apply to the Sunrise Readers Book 1 Friends vocabulary/ word list – but there are blank templates included that may be used to give practice and consolidation for other words.

Go Fishing – a Word Game

Print out the fish/ word templates below. If possible, use coloured card – or paint them. Laminate them so that they can be used again and again. In the long run, this saves time and money!

1. Cut out the fish.
2. Make a pond:  The children can imagine a pond if you tell them a little story – imagination is important and useful in bringing learning alive and making it fun and interesting!
   • Use a blue cloth/ any table cloth etc to represent the pond. Or…
   • Make the outline of a pond with rope or string. Or…
   • Make a pond out of blue card. Or…
   • Children can make the pond by painting paper blue and green and creating pond creatures like frogs, tadpoles, ducks, dragon flies etc.
3. Place the fish templates word-down on the “pond” – the blank side is up. (The learners cannot see the word.)
4. The children pick the fish up with their hands. HOWEVER – if magnets are available, make a fishing rod out of a stick or dowelling rod with string and a magnet attached (instead of a hook). Slip a metal paper clip on the blank side of each fish. (The magnet on the rod will pick this up!)
5. The learners take turns to pick the fish up. The learner reads the word aloud, then turns the word towards the group and the group reads it 3x together. He/ she then ‘keeps’ that fish. IF the learner cannot read the word or gets it incorrect, he/she shows the word to the group and they all read it 3x. The fish then goes back into the pond.

Variations – There are many variations.

Memory Game:

The children turn a fish-card up (or “catch” it with the class fishing rod.) They read the word, and then they try to find the same word with a capital or lower case letter. To do this, they turn one word over. If it is not the word they are looking for, they replace it face down and someone else has a turn. (This way, the children try to remember where the words are.) e.g.

Matching

Using the small fish templates, the learners take turns to “catch” a fish and then all the learners find the same word on their small fish templates and – if correct – they ‘keep’ those.

Alphabet/Letter Sounds:

If you are working with the letters of the alphabet, have the children take turns to “catch” a fish and press-stick the word under the relevant Classroom Alphabet flashcard (“Word Wall”) e.g.

Bingo

Teacher/ Parent holds up a large fish word:

General Practice: The learners read the word aloud and place a ‘counter’ (could be a bean, bottle top or any small object) on top of the correct letter on their individual alphabet charts.

Competition: They read the word quietly and place the ‘counter’ on the correct letter on their individual alphabet charts.

Writing Practice

Tracing the words on fish templates. We’ve included this activity for teachers and parents to use to practice encoding/ writing the words as well as reading them.

Resources

Below, please find free downloadable templates/ resources for the games above:

Large Fish Words and Templates

Small Fish Words and Templates

Tracing the words on fish templates

Classroom Alphabet Cards/ Charts

Individual Alphabet Charts