Alphabet & Letters
Learn Alphabet & Letters through play.
Most children meet letters long before they can read: the first letter of their name, the M on a familiar sign, the shapes on a fridge magnet. These activities build on that rather than starting from A.
Nearly all of them involve moving — hunting letters hidden round a room, fishing magnetic letters out of water, stamping them into dough, building them from sticks. A letter a child crawled under a table to find is a letter they remember, and it takes far less persuading than a worksheet.
Two things are worth knowing. Start with the letters in your child's name, because they already care about those. And say the sound the letter makes rather than its name — "sss" rather than "ess" — because the sound is what will eventually help them read the word snake.
Activities
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I Spy, But With Sounds
The same game you already know, played with the sound a word starts with instead of the letter. Needs nothing at all.
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Building Your Name Out of Sticks
Straight lines make most capital letters. Lolly sticks, twigs or straws turn letter shapes into something you build rather than draw.
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Alphabet Hunt Around the House
Hide letters around one room and send your child to find them. No preparation beyond writing on some paper, and it teaches letter recognition better than a worksheet.