Letter Recognition
I use this activity to help my kindergartener son practice his spelling words. Because let’s face it, memorizing things isn’t fun for young children. Since my 3 year old daughter thinks she should do everything her big brother does, I adjusted this for her to practice her letters, numbers, and writing practice.
All you will need to do this simple activity are paper and crayons. That’s it.
I drew an upper and lower case A for my daughter and her friend. But we also did a couple of numbers and threw in some shapes, too.
Have your child trace the letter, shape, or number with any color crayon. As they are tracing it have them say it out loud, too. For letters we say the letters and then say the sound they make. For shapes we will say the shape and then say something that is that shape. You get the idea.
Have them trace over the object again with a different color crayon.
Then have them repeat it again with another color, and so on until all seven colors of the rainbow are used.
Our friends had a little trouble getting the idea at first, they wanted to draw another one next to the one I had drawn. But with a little bit of guidance they saw that it would make that one a rainbow and then they were eager to do it.
Now you have a rainbowed letter (or number or shape).
This is a very easy way to get your child to do repetition without making it seem like doing the same thing seven times. It is great for handwriting and pencil grasp practice, along with recognition of letters, shapes, numbers, and colors. It really is a lot of fun and your refrigerator will soon be covered with rainbowed objects. Just a warning.
Kim is a contributing writer for No Time For Flash Cards, a mom to a toddler, a preschooler, and a foster parent, too. She juggles her day by trying out fun activities and crafts with the kids. After all, she is just a big kid herself. See what she has been up to over at Mom Tried It.
For about 3 weeks we’ve been writing on our playroom wall, well on paper attached to the wall. Both my kids, friends who have come by and even my husband and I have contributed to this on going mural. My daughter loves to write on vertical surfaces and she is just starting to point out letters in books and other print so I figures we could fill both those needs and create a cooperative project for my son and her as well.
- Gather your materials. You will need some painters tape ( don’t buy the cheap stuff, I did and it’s cheap for a reason), butcher block ( aka craft paper), marker and then the materials to decorate things like crayons, markers, stickers…
- Clear a large wall space, part of the magic of a mural is it’s size so to make a simple project like this super make it big. Hang the paper up.
- Write out the alphabet . I thought I had it spaced well but poor little z got almost no space.
- Add kids. Sometimes I ask her to find a letter and color, often I just put the crayon jar on the floor and watch.
- We added stickers . My son put them on the matching letter, and directed my daughter where to put them too. Stickers are great little fine motor exercises especially peeling them off their original sheets.
- Now every time we are in the playroom ( many times a day) someone adds something.
Not sure how long we will leave it up but for now we are having fun with it. Below is the mural today- check out all the stars on the letter S, it’s my daughter’s favorite word these days!
Alphabet Books
by Denise Fleming is a wonderful example of what an alphabet book should be. Perfect for toddlers and preschoolers learning their first letters, the text is short , the letters are front and center and the illustrations are fun and interesting. My son loves this book, I grabbed it at the library after remembering how much my Pre K class loved it too.Many alphabet books are too long to read entirety at circle time or in one shot with a toddler but this my 19 month old will sit through Z every time. {This review is from when my son was 19 months old in 2008. His love of this book was really a jumping off point for his love of letters in general. I wish I could say I taught him his letters but really reading this one particular book over and over at his request probably did the trick. }
Chicka Chicka ABC
Al Pha’s Bet
We are almost half way through the alphabet with our Letter of The Week theme series. These theme posts are meant to bring together upper and lowercase letter crafts, crafts and projects that begin with the letter and whole alphabet books and activities. Why do this? To make it easier for you to find what you need for every letter.
{Letter L Crafts}
Ladder L- Leaf L -Lighthouse l - Love L
{Crafts & Activities That Start With L}
Ladybug Craft – Ladybug Math- Lanterns- Leaves – Lego Measuring – Leopard Craft- Lightning Bugs – Love Bugs
{ Alphabet Books }
The Alphabet from A to Y With Bonus Letter Z!
Alphabeep!: A Zipping, Zooming ABC
{ Whole Alphabet Activities}
Alphabet Sensory Tub - Car Alphabet – Family Letters
Letter of The Week is one of our most popular series. If you want to know more about my approach to letter of the week and how I have used it in my classes and home I explain it all here. We believe in playing with letters, playing with books and playing with language in it’s many forms. Kids learn best through hands on experiences so expose them to the world of letters through their world of play. Our eBook has a whole alphabet full of crafts as well as some exclusive never seen on the site!
Letter K Crafts
K Activities
Kandinsky Inspired Project - Knight’s Shield – Lock & Key Match
Letter Activities For The Whole Alphabet
Fun with Alphabet Beads - Post Office Letter Sorting - Sandpaper Letter Tracing
This was taught to me by a developmental therapist and I used this technique with one of my foster sons that had sensory issues. I never thought to do it for help with recognition for shapes, letters, and numbers. Duh! But I finally made the connection last month when I had the daunting task of coming up with activities for my children during a 6 hour car ride. You will see what I am talking about in a second.
The only things you will need for this activity are sandpaper, crayons (I used oil pastels since they are softer), and yarn. Yep, that’s it.
Draw any shape, letter, number, pretty much anything onto a piece of sandpaper.
This is especially helpful for me because our school system uses D’nealian handwriting techniques and you cannot find that as easily as traditional font activities.
Now give your child a piece of yarn (about 12 inches) and let them “trace” the shape or letter with the yarn.
*Please be careful, long strands of yarn can be dangerous for small children. This activity can easily use two pieces of yarn for a shape if needed. Only you know what your child is ready for.
Even though my son is past letter recognition, he had to join in because my daughter was having too much fun.
A neat benefit to this activity is that the sandpaper grips the yarn. So the yarn will stay in place as your child manipulates it along the paper. This is what makes it so awesome for travel, too. The yarn will stay where you put it. Now if your child waves the paper wildly declaring, “I did it!” the yarn will move a bit. As you can see. 
Are you going to use shapes, letters, numbers, or do you have another idea? Please share.
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Kim is a contributing writer for No Time For Flash Cards, a mom to a toddler, a preschooler, and a foster parent, too. She juggles her day by trying out fun activities and crafts with the kids. After all, she is just a big kid herself. See what she has been up to over at Mom Tried It
