There is just something about the spots on cows that grabs the attention of our little ones! I must say I enjoy seeing the spots on cows myself!

I just had to find an activity to incorporate spots on cows into our Trip to The Farm unit, and here you have it! Place the Spots on the Cow! A Sight Word Matching Activity.

What are Sight Words, and why are sight words important?

Sight words are common words like ‘my’, ‘look’, ‘the’ and ‘little’ that children need to recognize instantly. These words are commonly used in language and must be learned by memorization because they do not follow conventional spelling and phonetic rules and are difficult to sound out.

When our little ones are able to recognize words instantly by sight, they become fluent readers, which leads to them being able to comprehend what they read.

Some tips on teaching sight words:

• Teach your child a few words at a time. This will lead to your child being confident as words are gradually added to the list of words they are learning.
• Repetition is vital when teaching young children, so practice words on a daily basis because sight words will take some extra effort on the part of our little ones to learn.
• Read books with the words you are teaching to your little ones and have them find the words in the text as you read. 
• You can also allow your child to read text from the story with the words they are learning so that they are putting their newfound knowledge to use.
• Use words to compose sentences for your child to read so that they are getting some needed exposure, as children will learn a word after being exposed to that word anywhere from 4-14 times.
• Play games with the sight words so your little one will be learning while having fun.
• Place words around the home or the classroom as they learn them. I have sight words on the wall in my girls’ bedroom, and we read them at night before going to bed. 
• For children who are older and writing, encourage them to use the words they are learning whenever they are writing. My girls are not writing as yet, but in their journals, I write sentences they construct or write sentences for them to draw pictures.

Materials you will need to reproduce this simple journal activity:

• A journal/paper
• construction paper
• Scissors
• Glue
• Markers
• Pencil

How to create this simple activity:

I am not an artist, as you can see! Creating activities for our little ones does not require perfection! Once they can tell what it is, they will appreciate your effort.
The wonderful thing about this activity is that creating the cow is simply drawing and cutting rectangles of different sizes and putting them together.

After glueing your rectangles together in the right places, use a black marker to colour in the feet, tail, eyes, nostrils, ears and horns.

Draw a shape for the spots on the cow. Trace the shape onto black construction paper and cut them out.

Trace the spot onto the cow and outline them with a black marker.
Use a white marker to write the words you want to teach or review with your little ones.

This activity is also great for :

• Discussing the foods we get from cows
• Concentration
• Hand-eye coordination 
• Fine motor skills development
• Special awareness 

Send us pictures of your little ones doing this activity so that we can share them in this article!😊

We do hope you find this activity useful. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us by sending us a message or visiting us @learning.stepbystep on Instagram, or Learning Step By Step on Facebook and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for educational resources that will help you and your littles on their learning journey as they continue to Learn Step By Step!

Thank you for being here!

Kimberlee and the Learning Step By Step Team.