Alphabet Garden
by Allison McDonald 
We have been doing so many playdough and other sensory activities lately that it was about time to get back to a simple and playful alphabet activity. This alphabet activity is part of our Alphabet For Starters series. This series is all about playing with letters, discovering them without pressure. This alphabet garden is super simple but can be made more challenging with a few simple changes.
- Gather your materials. You will need some contact paper ( rumor has it that the dollar store is carrying it now! ), some green construction paper, multi-color construction paper, scissor and a marker or two.
- Attach the contact paper to the wall sticky side out. She loves to “get stuck” on the wall .
- Next step is making some grass. Fold your green paper, and cut.
- Next cut some stems and flowers. I sis tulips because they are easy to free hand cut.
- Add letters to your flowers. Now here is where you can easily customize this activity. For my daughter I did plain old lowercase letters. You can do upper or a mix or write letters on the stems and have it turn into a match game.
- Set the pieces out and let your kiddo explore.
- My daughter loves flowers and she got right into it.
We talked about the letters, the colors of the flowers and how the stems are different lengths. Don’t pressure young kids to do every letter. My daughter put a handful on while we played the first time and then I left it all set up and a few days letter she returned and added a few more. I will leave it up for a few more days and I am sure she will keep adding a few every day.
The whole point is to play and discover letters. As she adds the letters to the wall she naturally says ” Look this is a it’s your letter Mama!” and we talk about it .
If you are looking for a more traditional letter of the week approach we have many letter of the week ideas here. My son loved cutting and pasting so we made fun letter crafts when he was learning his letters. Find what works best for your child, what they enjoy and don’t forget to have fun!
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We love playing with the alphabet. Whether it’s making letter crafts , reading book or creative activities like this we play with and point out letters where ever we go. This is the 5th installment of our Alphabet For Starters series, posts dedicated to introducing and playing with letters for beginners. We spent the majority of the day outside pulling weeds and my daughter helped us by pulling flowers too. I decided to piggy back that with this alphabet garden magnetic play. Please be careful whenever you use magnets . I prefer using products like this adhesive magnetic roll vs round magnets that are all too often put in little mouths. If your child is still putting things in their mouth skip the magnets it’s a nice extra but not required.
- Gather your materials. You will need some fun precut shapes I am using wooden shapes fromCraftprojectideas.com , some permanent markers, scissors, magnetic sheets , some paper and a cookie sheet.
- Start by writing out the alphabet one letter at a time on the wooden pieces.
- Decorate . I used permanent markers because I wanted to play the same day but if you have the time paint would be nice too.
- Trace the shape on the paper side of the adhesive magnetic roll.
- Cut and stick.
- Make a few scenes on paper ( I made a garden and a vase ), placed them on the cookie sheet and put the letters in a basket.
- Play. She started right away.
- Then switched the scene and kept going.
As she placed the letters I labeled them and every now and then would ask which letter she liked best, which color she liked best and which was her favorite flower/ butterfly. Anything with polka dots was the verdict every time. 
Alphabet Books
A Gardener’s Alphabet
Baby’s Alphabet 
The Sleepy Little Alphabet: A Bedtime Story from Alphabet Town 
