Posts Tagged ‘Letter Recognition’
When children are learning to read playing games with their developing skills is a great way to practice while playing. This giant word search can be used so many ways. For my almost 5 year old I put in simple words he could recognize or easily sound out. I also helped him by making all the words a consistent color and horizontal only. With younger children it can still be a fun game simply looking for specific colors or letters. With older ones you can make words multi colored, going every which way. The learning isn’t just in the searching either, using the dry erase marker to carefully circle the letters or words is fantastic writing practice and the foam letters are a sensory experience too.
- Gather your materials. You will need a sturdy backing like a inexpensive canvas or even some cardboard, contact paper ( which will make it wipe off) foam letter stickers ( two packs) and scissors. Also a dry erase marker to play with.
- Start by covering your canvas or card board with clear contact paper. This makes the surface friendly for dry erase . I found that a baby wipe worded the best to get the marker off after we played.
- Start making a column of letters.
- Decide on some words to pop in. Like I said in the preamble you can customize this to your child’s specific stage of learning.
- Add the words mixed with some random letters.
- Invite your child to play. I meant to make a list of the words I included but forgot and it turned out we didn’t need them. You may want one though.
- Oops he circled the o but it was no biggie because it’s dry erase!
I was fascinated by which words he knew by sight and which he sounded out. He loved this and I can see myself making a few more over the next few months for sure.
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This is an activity that you will have to make for your children to play with. Don’t worry, it is very easy.
You will need a piece of foam board (I got mine from the dollar store), marker, scissors, and a pencil.
Draw lines for your domino pieces. I made mine with four rows going long ways and six columns going short ways. I used a piece of scrap I had for the missing two letters. I didn’t measure them out exactly, but this is where type A’s could really have fun.
Use your scissors, craft knife, or steak knife and cut out your pieces.
This is where I drew a line across the middle as a divider. I drew mine in pencil because I always mess up.
Write upper and lower case letters on each side. I drew mine in the same direction to make it easier for my children to look at the dominoes and decide which ones matched up. I didn’t want any upside down.
This is a very good time to pay attention to which letters you write next to each other on the same piece. You want your children to be able to match the letters throughout the alphabet. I just did them in order starting with an upper case Z on top and a lower case a on the bottom of the first. The second domino had an upper case A with a lower case b. And so on.
Now throw the dominoes on the floor and start playing an matching up!
You can alter these with site words and pictures, dots and numbers, or anything you would like some hands on learning and matching. The possibilities really are endless. What are you going to write on yours?
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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.
This idea actually started at Valentine’s Day. Our 3 year old (foster son) wanted to write his name on all of the cards for his class, like our 4 year old was doing. The problem is that he cannot write. We are working on it, but that time was not the right time to sit with two preschool aged boys as they wrote out 16 cards each (while keeping the 2 year old occupied and the baby entertained).
So I grabbed a block that had put away because of a choking hazard to the baby and made a stamp for the 3 year old to put his name on the cards. This became so popular that I had to make one for everyone. Here is how I did one for Charley (my 2 year old). Grab a block, any kind will do. You will also need a pencil and puffy paint.
Write your child’s name on the block, but remember to do it backwards.
This is what happens when you aren’t giving your craft your full attention. I honestly didn’t even notice how wrong it was until she went to stamp. Duh!
So now it should look like this.
Grab your ink pad and let your child start stamping their name away.
This stamp is great for those of you that gave your child a uncommon name or a unique spelling, like I did. I am never going to find anything that has “Charley” on it in the stores, especially geared for a girl. Now she has a stamp with her name and her spelling.
Obviously this is great for name recognition. It works well for phonics and letter recognition, too. And what kid doesn’t love to stamp?
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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.
When my son started eating solids I made all his food… you can guess that is not the case with my daughter as I have this many baby food jar lids waiting to be made into something. I am just happy we made something useful and fun with them since they can’t be recycled like the jars can. This took me 5 minutes to make and $1 for the foam letter stickers. Frugal, Educational, Earth Friendly-ish ( foam letters are probably not eh?) and fun! Oh and super simple for the uncrafty or crazy busy .Oh and if your child is not ready for letters yet do colors, if they are way past letters try sight words. This idea can be adapted to any ability.
- Gather your materials. You will need some foam letter stickers and many jar lids (or milk jug caps would work too). You may want to do the whole alphabet but I didn’t bother letters work in all different combinations and you don’t need the whole alphabet each time you do activities with letters. You may also want a wet cloth to wipe any lids that didn’t get washed as well as you’d hoped.
- Peel and stick letters into the insides of the lids.
- Add them for each lid.
- Play.
For beginners play with the letters facing up saying only “Can you find…” giving hints using the color and what letters it’s next to.
- For more experienced kids play face down. My 4.5 year old needed more help than I thought he would, not naming the letters but understanding he needed to remember where letters were. He also had a hard time flipping the lids with Grandma’s gloves Batman gloves on.
- Yay a match!
Alphabet Books
Quilt Alphabet
A Was an Apple Pie 
“A” Was Once An Apple Pie
Young children need plenty of opportunities recognizing and forming letters before they can become proficient at writing them. Since the fine motor dexterity to form letters on paper sometimes doesn’t come until late in the preschool years, creativity is key! When an activity blends multiple domains of early childhood development, this helps to engage your child even more. Here are just a few ideas for teaching letter recognition and letter formation in a fun and engaging way!
Attach several pieces of ribbon or yarn to one end of a
What fun ways do you and your child practice forming letters?
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