Free Christmas Pokey Pinning: Kindergarten Sight Words Activity
Get working on sight words with this free Christmas pokey pinning activity for kindergarten. You’ll love how easy it is to work on fine motor skills at the same time as sight words for your kindergarten class.
We can get so busy during the Holiday season in a kindergarten classroom. There’s so much we’d like to do in December and really, so little time.
Use this free pokey pin activity in your pokey pinning literacy center to help maximize the feeling of Holiday fun in your classroom while staying focused on learning.
This Christmas pokey pin download is free and at the bottom of this post. You will get five different pages of text and pictures to use.
You could do a new one each week until Christmas!
And what’s better is that if you don’t love the sight words I picked, you can use the editable pages I’ve included to write your own text. That way you can customize this to fit your own classroom’s needs.
How to pokey pin
If you’re not familiar with pokey pinning, here is a quick run down.
Pokey pinning is a fine-motor activity for students to create pictures, words, or designs using pinpricks.
It’s usually done on a soft surface, like the carpet of a classroom and the holes are made with a push pin.
You probably already have all the tools you need to do this activity tomorrow.
You’ll need:
- pushpin for each student
- colored construction paper
- printed templates
- pencils
How to assemble and complete the activity
- Download the pokey pinning templates. [terms of use] [downloading help]
- Run the templates onto 11″ x 8.5″ paper and then cut the page in half. You’ll get two templates per page. You need one template per student.
- Cut construction paper to be the same size (5.5″ x 4.25″). One per student.
- Teach students how to staple a single staple in the template on top of the construction paper. (Or you could prep these ahead of time if you wanted… but I never did. I don’t like doing things for my students that they can do themselves)
- Students write their name with a pencil in the rectangle at the top of the template.
- Students lay on their bellies on a soft surface (like the carpet) and push holes through the papers tracing on top of the lines of:
- their name
- the sight word phrase or sentence
- the design/picture
- When complete, students tear off the top template and pitch it (which is why I liked to run those off on the backs of scrap/discarded paper from the copy room). They are left with a beautiful pinned design on the construction paper underneath to display.
Helpful tips
I like to call these sunlight sight word catchers. They look awesome hanging in a window. When the sun shines through you can really see their work.
In this free download, there are 5 pictures and they feature these sight words:
- where
- has
- your
- this
- One is just for fun and says, “Merry Christmas“
The Christmas pictures that students will pin aren’t too Christmas-y… just in case your school frowns on such frivolity. They are a hat, gift, boot, cookie and… well, a Christmas tree. Okay, so maybe that doesn’t apply {wink}
The pictures are the same in the editable files, but you create the text.
I recommend easy phrases or sentences that have mostly sight words (or CVC words) in them of 3-5 words in length.
You’ll need either Microsoft PowerPoint or Google Slides to make edits to these zip files.
As students strengthen their fine motor skills, they begin to poke holes that are more evenly spaced and more tightly spaced holes resulting in even more fantastic looking work they are proud of.
Can’t get enough?
If you fall in love with this center as I and so many other kindergarten teachers have, then you’ll want to get 40 more pinning templates that all come with an editable version in the Sunlight Wight Word Catchers bundle.
It’s got all of the printable material to get this center up and running and running smoothly for the rest of the year.
You can also snag a beginning of the year pokey pinning activity for free. It’s great to introduce this center and practice it whole group.
Here’s what other teachers are saying about this center
Great idea for learning and reinforcing sight words. – Jill T.
I was nervous to try this with my K class but it has now become a favorite way to practice sight words, highly recommend. – Buyer
My kiddos love these and I will continue to use them EVERY year! They get them excited about reading (After they complete one they have to bring it to me/or I go to them and they have to read it to me. If they can’t, I read it to them and then they repeat it or better yet, I have a classmate who is a strong reader help them!) and displaying their own creations in the classroom. What a MARVELOUS idea. Thank you so so much for sharing your time and creative efforts. – Wendy E.
This is one of the best activities I have purchased! – Kendra
I originally saw these on your blog and couldn’t wait to add these to our class. My kids wrote about their favourite literacy station and pokey pins was #1. Thank you! – Love for the Littles
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Check out these 13 Quick Christmas Videos for Kindergarten to save you time.
