Popcorn Words

When my oldest was in kindergarten, his teacher did something she called 'popcorn words.' It was a list of words sight words for the children to learn because they 'pop-up' all over the place while you are reading. (The words on the list make up 25% of all reading, according to the handout that came home with my son).

To learn them and make it a little more fun, I made a poster of a bag of popcorn, and wrote each word on a white piece of paper that I attempted to make look like a popped kernel of corn. Each night we'd add one more, and when he'd finished a set and could get them all right on the first try, we'd go out to the mall and buy a bag of candy popcorn.

Well, my daughter thought this was a GREAT idea, and wanted to do it too, but I told her she had to wait until she was in kindergarten, and so this fall when she started, she asked if she could start working on her popcorn words. I pulled the visuals back out, put them on her wall, and we set off.

The poster in her room, with all the completed words for Set #1.

She was so eager to do this, and has such a great natural memory, that she quickly finished off her first level of words. So we were off to the mall!

Here she is looking at the selection of flavours. Decisions, decisions!

Sweet success! I am so proud of her for working so hard and so happy that she was excited to learn her words.

In case your are interested, here are the sets of words:

Set #1: the, I, to, of, in, is, and, she, a, was, it, that, as, he

Set #2: into, not, do, am, go, so, we, run, they, play, with, see, be, some, up, on, good, can, me, at, has, you, look, fun

Set #3 (what we are currently working on): did, one, are, too, day, have, more, stop, if, love, an, four, yes, big, this, said, no, will, from, all, want, had, very, like

Set #4: her, then, your, old, say, us, make, went, our, come, back, let, now, little, but, what, down, my, home, get, him, put, small

Set #5: new, she, use, when, would, their, friend, don't, where, were, its, there, because, night, his, please, ask, how, by, them, eat, why, here, dear, lot, hello, school

PS: I was in an educational toy store recently and found a set of actual Popcorn Words visuals ---must have been where the kindergarten teacher got the idea in the first place --- and they were about $12. My homemade version was about $2.00 plus one evening of working on it while I watched a video.