Water Balloon Sight Words Activity
Cast of Characters:
Mr. Black Licorice: My almost 7 year old son who was begging me all summer for a water balloon fight.
Mr. Yoda: My 5 year old son who has moved on from Thomas the Tank Engine to Stars Wars and Lego.
Miss Ballerina: My almost 3 year old daughter who like her alias loves to twirl and dance.
PIN TRIED IT THURSDAY posted by Bonnie Dani
I thought how hard can this be – Fill balloons with water- Write words on- Throw at each other.
So summer was speeding on by and my attempts at getting my son to review sight words, do some reading and practise anything related to school was always meet with a resounding ‘No’ or ‘uh-uh’. I could hardly blame him as sitting to do any of this on a hot, summer day was not thrilling me either. I had come across the many pinterest boards on practising sight words that appeared so fun, engaging and creative. Non-boring. I had seen a pin with the Alphabet on water balloons so why not adding sight words to the water balloons. I have been looking for the actual pin but of course now I can’t find it. Time to reorganize my pins I think.
This whole thing reminded me of when I was teaching and I would have a brain wave to make a lesson more fun and engaging. However, lesson planning takes just that pain staking planning and preparations. Even though this was just an attempt with my 3 children it gave me some very good reminders.
1. Have all supplies ready before you start. Which would include making balloons the night before because it is at that time you realize that tying the balloons takes time, a lot of time. Unless you have fancy balloon tying gadget which I didn’t or if you are lucky enough maybe you can enlist the help of your significant other, or older child. Now I see the the advantages of having lots of kids and by that I mean Duggar lots.
2.Always review expectations before engaging in the activity. This might include proper conduct – you must say the word before throwing, no throwing at people who are not playing, everyone must help with clean-up etc…
The one thing I did do that kept my sanity because I did not have my supplies ready was to have them busy with another activity until I was ready.
While building this- they did come to check on my every 5 minutes to see if I was ready. Their excitement was growing with each balloon.
Ok- so finally I was ready. I had made 20 balloons in just over an hour. The picture at the beginning of post shows all of them eagerly waiting to start throwing the balloons. They had to wait till mom was done explaining how everything was going to shake down.
They all lined up like a firing squad ready to soak their mama. Mr. Black Licorice went first. He read the word on his balloon and threw…
A bit anticlimactic I’m afraid – the balloon bounced off of me and hit the ground and burst its contents into the grass. Disappointment – only 19 balloons left. Next was Miss Ballerina – well hers sailed right passed me after we told her the word on the balloon burst again in the grass. Last was Mr. Yoda and his too bounced off and landed in the grass.
All the balloons basically had the same fate. In like 5 minutes! Probably less. My toes had gotten a little wet but that was about it.
Expectations, expectations, expectations. For both Mr. Black Licorice and myself the activity had failed. We have to let expectations go! He didn’t soak his mother and I don’t think he really reviewed any of the words. I do see the potential with this activity and next time I would do things differently.
If you are looking for other fabulous ideas for Sight Word Practise check out these from Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas or these from I can teach my child.
If you have tried Water Balloon literacy activities and had more success then I, I would be grateful for any tips you could share with me and anyone else who would love to try this activity.
Cheers,
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