This is often the sheet that works when nothing else does.
A child who resists vocabulary worksheets on principle will sit down with one
where the words are BASEBALL, HELMET and TROPHY, and the reading work is
exactly the same as it would have been on any other topic. Interest in the subject is the cheapest form of motivation there is.
What is in the bank
Forty-eight words in three rough groups.
Team sports: BASEBALL, BASKETBALL, FOOTBALL, SOCCER, HOCKEY,
VOLLEYBALL, SOFTBALL, LACROSSE, RUGBY, CRICKET.
Individual sports: TENNIS, GOLF, SWIMMING, RUNNING, CYCLING,
SKIING, SKATING, SURFING, BOXING, ARCHERY, BOWLING, CLIMBING,
DIVING, FENCING, GYMNASTICS, KARATE, JUDO.
Everything around the sport: COACH, REFEREE, UMPIRE, WHISTLE,
TROPHY, MEDAL, STADIUM, HELMET, JERSEY, PENALTY, INNING, DUGOUT.
That third group is the one worth noticing. Children know these words from
watching and almost never write them. REFEREE and PENALTY are commonly
misspelled well into middle school.
The grid sizes split it usefully
The 8x8 takes only the short names: GOLF, TENNIS, BOXING, ROWING,
DIVING, KARATE, JUDO, TEAM, GOAL, MEDAL. It is a real sheet, and none
of the ten-letter sport names fit, so it stays approachable.
The 10x10 and up admit BASKETBALL, VOLLEYBALL, GYMNASTICS and
BADMINTON. The 12x12 and 14x14 also switch to all eight directions, which
doubles the search time.
Two ways to get more out of it
Sort by number of players. Give the word list before the grid and ask
students to split the sports into team and individual. CLIMBING starts a fight, and so does CRICKET once somebody remembers the
other meaning.
Match the gear to the sport. HELMET, JERSEY, WHISTLE, MEDAL. Which
sports use each one, and which use more than one? It is a quick activity that
gets students reading past the words they recognized immediately.
Two words that will come up
Football means two different sports. The bank has FOOTBALL and SOCCER as
separate entries, which is the American convention. In most of the rest of the
world the first word means the second sport. If you have a child in the room who
learned the game somewhere else, this is worth thirty seconds before they start,
because otherwise they find FOOTBALL and quietly decide the sheet is wrong.
Cricket is on this sheet and on the insect sheet. Same spelling, two completely unrelated things, and the insect version is the one most American children know. Words that carry two meanings are worth pointing at whenever they turn up, and this one arrives free.
For a coach or a team
The craft page lets you type your own words, so a roster of player names makes a sheet for the first day of a season, or a bus ride to an away game. Mix them with this topic’s bank if you want the list longer than the team is.