Inside: Free sight word chatterboxes for first grade.
Did you know that chatterboxes are also called fortune tellers and cootie catchers?
Whatever you call them, they’re a form of origami and are also known as “salt cellars”, “whirybirds” and “taku-taku”. If you check out this Wikipedia link you can read all sorts of cool facts!
I’m going to assume that the vast majority of readers are familiar with this children’s game. If not, don’t worry, I have full directions on how to make and play the game in my download.
When you download and print the template it will look like this:
Your students will need to colour each circle a different colour then print the colour word underneath. Yes! More spelling practice!
In each of the inside triangles they’ll print a different sight word. Their sheet will look something like this:
It’s now ready to be folded (directions are included in the download).
Here’s a picture of my finished chatterbox.
Here’s How to Play with the Sight Word Chatterbox
(Directions are also in the download)
- Place your thumb and first finger from each hand into the paper pockets
- Ask a friend to pick a colour then open and close the chatterbox while spelling the colour word out loud
- Friend looks inside and picks one of the numbers
- You count out loud while opening and closing the chatterbox
- Friend picks another number. Lift up that flap and friend (or you) reads the sight word
If you make these in the classroom, then you can spend some time where the kids are playing the game with each other. They end up getting endless amounts of practice reading and spelling the colour words and sight words.
In the download I’ve also include two other variations of the template. One of those is blank (except for the lines). With that one you could print sight words on the outside, sight words in place of the numbers and then print silly actions for your friends to do on the final flaps.
Too Hard to Fold?
Sometimes 6 year olds find it quite challenging to fold chatterboxes. But don’t worry, there are lots of workarounds:
- Have your big buddy class help out
- Invite some parent volunteers to assist with the folding
- Train 4 or 5 of your students to be the folding experts (pretty soon most everyone else will catch on)
- Do all the printing at school then send the chatterbox home to be folded. Bring them back to school the next day and play/practice. It’s no big deal if some kids forget. You can either have some extras on hand or they can share with a friend.
DOWNLOAD: Chatterbox Sight Word Games
This download also includes a Snakes ‘n Ladders sight word game. You can see the post HERE!