How To Organize Your Sight Word Center in Kindergarten

Literacy centers is one of our favorite times of day and adding a sight word station can make it that much better! But what is the best way to organize your sight word center?

When setting up your sight word center in kindergarten or 1st grade, one of your goals should be to get your students as independent as possible. To make that happen, I grabbed a 10-drawer cart and these free labels!

Sight Word Center Set Up

I will admit, when I grabbed this 10-drawer cart I had no idea what I wanted to use it for. It was just beautiful and I couldn’t resist!

But then I realized it would be perfect for our sight word station! My editable sight word games and centers have 10 different center options included each month. Perfect fit!

Center Labels

I like these center labels because they have picture icons to show students what materials they will need for that activity. This helps students become independent and also helps me manage our literacy centers.

Grab the FREE sight word center labels here!

Organizing Your Sight Word Center

Each drawer contains one sight word activity. If you want students to be able to pull a drawer out and take it with them, simply remove the stopper clips on the cart. Then they can take the drawer out and easily slide it back in!

I was able to fit everything students need for each center in the drawers except for the pocket dice:

I just put a small basket on top of the cart for the pocket dice! If you differentiate your sight word centers, you could use different colored pocket dice to do that.

I chose a pink basket so that it would somewhat match the drawer the center is in.

Managing This Literacy Center

If you have read about how I run my literacy centers in kindergarten, you know that I don’t do rotations. Instead, students can choose from their differentiated basket centers or a second choice center each day.

This station will now become a second choice center and I will introduce it just like I do our other centers.

Differentiating Your Sight Word Center

You can easily use folders to differentiate your sight word center! Now, I suggest using poly or manila folders, but hanging folders is what I had here.

Each level would be in a different colored folder. So if you print three levels of the Roll and Race center, put the different game boards into the different folders.

Then, when students open a drawer, they can pull out the color that fits them!

Back to School Sight Word Centers

I thought I would show you an example of what I put in each drawer by giving you a peak at our August sight word centers.

For this roll, read, and write activity, students will roll the pocket dice. They will then read the sight word and then write it on a book.

The great thing about my editable sight word games and centers is that you can type in any words you need! You aren’t limited to a specific sight word list.

This is a fun partner game for literacy centers! Students will roll their dice and then find the corresponding word. Then, they will move their game piece to that word.

Have you noticed that just adding rainbow to a center can amp the engagement by 1,000%? For this sight word activity, students will pull a word card and read it. Then, they will spin a color to write the word in.

For this center, students can simply match the sight word pairs and then write the word.

It can also be a fun sight word game! Students can lay all the cards face down. Then, they can take turns flipping over two cards to try and make a match.

This is another fun partner game! Students will take turns spinning a sight word and then covering the word on the board. The person with the most spots covered in the end wins!

Now, for this write the room center, I usually have the cards hung up around the room. Students can grab a clip board and then walk around finding the words to write.

Management tip – I always let my students color the pictures after they finish finding all of the words.

This center is a great way to push your students who need a challenge. For this station, they will choose a sight word to use in a sentence. They can use the vocabulary lists to help them.

For this sight word game, students will roll a sight word. They will then find it on their recording sheet and color it.

This activity is similar. Students will spin a sight word and then find it and color it on their recording sheet.

Want Engaging Sight Word Centers for the Year?

My editable sight word centers are the perfect solution for you! YOU get to choose the words which means that you are not limited to a specific word list. The activities also stay the same each month to promote independence. New themes will keep things fun and engaging!

Grab the editable sight word games and centers here!

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