Its so much fun teaching young children the alphabet, firstly because there are so many possibilities to teach it and also because letter knowledge is the starting point to get children excited about reading. In this post i have collated different activities catering to different learning styles to teach the alphabet. Its common knowledge that children learn differently and hence I love incorporating multiple intelligence's while planning letter activities.
Download this poster from HERE
The activities below include crafts, songs, books and other fun stuff that you can use in the classroom or even as a parent at home.
For letter a, use an apple to make apple imprints.
For letter b, blow up balloons and ask your child to give a word from the letter. If he/she gives a correct word let him/her burst the balloon. Make it fun by counting how many balloons your child was able to burst.
For letter c, let your kinesthetic learners feel cotton and stick it on a template of letter c.
Download free alphabet templates from HERE
For letter d, do an origami dog craft. The origami folding will help in developing fine motor skills.
Find the instructions HERE
To get your musical bunch moving to the beats of a song, sing "Elephants have wrinkles" for letter e.
Make hand puppets to go with the song.
To cater to the demands of your linguistic learners, read the book "Fish Faces" by Norbert Wu for letter f. Ask children to make funny fish pouts and let them decorate a fish template.
For letter g, let the kids color with green/grey color and sprinkle some glitter on the letter.
For letter h, give different shapes to the kids to help them turn the template of letter h into a house.
Children will freak out when you tell them that they will paint an igloo with an ice cube, for letter i. Don't forget to capture their expressions when they are painting!
Get your logical thinkers to put on their thinking caps for this activity. Place different kinds/sizes of jars for children to sort according to size. Mix the lids and let them find and fit it on the correct jars.
For letter k, fly kites if possible or decorate a simple kite pattern.
Let the kids have fun licking lollipops for letter l.
Sing the five little monster song for letter m. Make puppets and let children enact the song.
Do some dancing on newspapers for letter n. Spread the newspaper and play some music. The child should not step out of the newspaper. Keep folding the newspaper and see how far your child can go.
Let your child solve an octopus puzzle for letter o. Let him/her put all the tentacles with short o words on the octopus. Download the puzzle by clicking on the pictures.
For letter p, make pig puppets. Let children use them to narrate the story of three little pigs.
Use q-tips or ear buds to do some painting on letter q.
Make rabbit head bands for letter r and take your kids out for a rabbit race.
Do some straw painting for letter s.
Have a toy party for letter t. Ask children to bring their favorite toys to share.
Do an upside down, under the table coloring for letter u. Kids will have a blast with this activity. It adds novelty to any coloring activity.
Make volcanoes for letter v. I do a demo first with my kids and let them make play dough volcanoes. I send a note home explaining how the lava can be made. Download the note by clicking on the picture.
"The Snail and the Whale" by Julia Donaldson is an excellent book on whales. Read it while doing letter w and let children use their imagination to draw whales.
For letter x, bring out old x-rays and let children pretend to be doctors. Put out white paint for them to make x- ray of their hands.
Stick yarn on letter y.
Take your naturalist learners on a trip to the zoo. Let them record what they saw at the zoo on the sheet below.
Have fun doing all these activities with your little ones!
