Here are activities and suggestions for teaching alphabet letters. Pick and choose what you think will work for your child and keep in mind that this should be a fun process for both parent, teacher and child! You will find this is the most rewarding way to teach….why do it any other way?!
Fun Activities for teaching alphabet letters:
Fill an empty slice tin with flour or rice and let them trace letters with their fingers. Shake the tin to start over.
Fill a large re-sealable see-through bag with shaving foam. Close it tight (!) and let them use their finger to make letters.
Letter of the Day or Week. Print out your chosen letter and colour it it. Pin it up on a large piece of paper and as you come across items, write them under the letter or cut out pictures and glue them underneath the letter. You could also turn this into a Place Mat
Teach the letter names by singing the Alphabet Song. Point to the letters on an alphabet frieze as you sing so that they can see that the letter names match the printed letters.
Make an Alphabet Book. Give each page a letter of the alphabet, and stick in magazine pictures that begin with the associated letter sound.
Make Alphabet Place Mats. Cut out lots of letters from magazines and glue them onto to some card. Laminate and use at meal times!
Make Alphabet Book Marks. Write or Print the first letter of a child’s name onto the top of a blank bookmark. Get them to cut out lots of letters from magazines or a picture that begins with their initial letter.
Make alphabet popsicle sticks. Buy 26 popsicle sticks and 26 wood cutouts, such as flowers, that you can glue onto the sticks. With a black marker pen, mark each cutout with a letter of the alphabet. I made these and played all sorts of games with them. Each day, my son would ‘pick a flower’ to be the letter of the day – then we would go on a Letter Huntaround our home!
Make or purchase a wall hanging with 26 pockets. Mark each pocket with a letter of the alphabet and put inside items that start with the same letter.
Make an Alphabet Sticker Book. Same as No.5 but use purchased stickers. You can get some awesome ones from craft stores.
Tracing Their Name. Write their name clearly with a black pen on white paper. Tape tracing paper over the paper (this stops the paper slipping) and let them trace their name with a pencil. This helps them associate the shape of the letters with the letters of their name and is also excellent for those early printing skills. Move on to tracing the rest of the alphabet letters!
Remember just to work for short stretches at a time as you don’t want to frustrate your child. Just spend 10 – 20 minutes each day and you’ll be amazed at your child’s progress.
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Letters Around the Room
by S.A. Taylor (Fuerteventura, Spain.)
- Place 4 letters around the room on adjacent walls. (For example, a, b, c and d.)
- Tell the children to stand in the middle of the room and run to the letter which starts the word the teacher/parent shouts out. (For example, donut = child goes to d, etc.)
- Chidren are rewarded with a gold star on the alphabet star chart when the child has mastered each letter correctly using 5 different words of increasing difficulty. (5 x ‘A’ words: apple, anteater, available, always & ancient = * 1 gold star.)
- Object is to have a gold star stuck next to or under each letter on the aphabet chart.
- It can be made easier or difficult and for older children the chart can be used for spelling with their fingers with lists of adjectives, adverbs etc.
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