Sight Word Cafe
This post contains affiliate links for your convenience. View our full disclosure policy here.
Learning sight words is crucial to successful reading development. Did you know they make up more than half of what we read? They often are not spelled phonetically, and they don’t leave picture clues on the page, so kids need practice and repetition to recognize them instantly. We love making practice fun, and this cafe themed sight word game is a blast!
So, chalk up your menu, put on your chef’s hat, and get ready to serve up some sight words in a very special pretend play cafe.
Whether you are at home with your own kids or in a classroom with a larger group, setting up a pretend play cafe is a fun way to learn and reinforce sight words.
Kids spend a lot of time learning sight words at school, but they will also need lots of support at home. My son is learning sight words at quite a pace now, so to help him keep up, we have been playing games using the sight words on his homework sheet. His favorite sight word game so far has been our Sight Word Cafe.
Setting up a Sight Word Cafe
Write up your menu – write the sight words that your child is currently learning on a large easel or sheet of paper.
Set the table – raid your pretend kitchen toys and set up a table for your customers to enjoy their sight words on.
Get the kitchen all set – load up a tray with wooden letters (or any will do) and plates for serving the sight words on.
Order Pad – Lay out a small white board and marker to use to take the orders down. This is also a great way to give your child plenty of practice in writing the words out as well as reading them back to you.
Serving up Sight Words
My son really got into his role as “head chef” in his cafe and insisted on putting on his full chef dressing up costume, before showing me to my table.
After perusing the menu for a few minutes, I was ready to place my order.
He wrote down my order for the appetizer- and, main course – big (I was very hungry) and dessert – are, on his whiteboard before hurrying back to his “kitchen” to prepare my first course.
My appetizer arrived quickly and it was just what I had ordered, a nice juicy and to get the meal off to a great start!
Once I had “finished”, my plate was promptly whisked away and replaced with my big main course. It didn’t disappoint, but I still had room left for my dessert.
I quickly ate it up and we then started the game all over again!
The best thing about this sight word game is that you can keep it fresh and interesting each week, as you can update the menu to match each new list of sight words you are working on. If you are playing this in your classroom, you can keep your sight word list handy or even type one up, write “menu” at the top, and laminate it. Then they will really feel like little chefs!
More Sight Word Fun
For more practice with learning sight words, grab some watercolors and make rainbow sight words, build words with these fun and simple tools, or grab our sight word sentences for the year!
More Pretend Play
We love play and truly believe that playing is learning! Grab some fun and free printables with our restaurant dramatic play, or take orders and create fabulous sundaes with a fun and simple Ice Cream Shop!
- Garden Sink or Float Activity - May 9, 2022
- Rainbow Rice Addition Sensory Bin - February 25, 2022
- Valentine Letter Match Activity - February 9, 2022