Letters of the Alphabet for Preschoolers: ABC

With Sunshine out of preschool and summer beginning, I knew I’d have to find something to do to keep her (and Lily) busy.  Both girls have been very interested in writing their names or writing letters to their cousins lately, so I thought this summer would be a good time to work on their alphabet.  We’ve been doing a letter a day for the last two weeks and it has been a ton of fun.

Here are the activities I planned for the first three letters of the alphabet.

The Letter A

I started with a printable that showed the girls how to write the letter A and gave them two lines on which to copy the letters.  I had a book that I photocopied the pages from (so I could use it for both of them), but there are also tons of similar printables available on Pinterest.

While they worked on copying their A’s, I used their Leapfrog fridge magnets to play an alphabet song for them.  We also sang “The Ants Go Marching…”  On the back of their papers, they made ants out of fingerprints (using my black stamp pad and three prints for each ant, then drawing legs and antennae).  They coloured the alligator on their printable.

Later, I gave them a couple old magazines and had them look for A’s in the magazines.  Sunshine can handle scissors very well on her own, so she cut out the A’s she found and pasted them into a notebook.  I helped Lily find and cut out words with A’s and then she glued them into her notebook.  At the top of the page, I wrote an “A” for them with arrows to show them how to draw the A.  It’s a somewhat random collection of “A” words.  Sunshine also added a few extra letters to her page, and I wrote out a tongue twister for her.

To take it further, we had snacks with the letter A: apple slices.

The Letter B

My printer wasn’t working so we couldn’t do a printable for the letter B, but the girls were eager to continue making their collages in their notebooks.  We went through their sticker collection looking for stickers that began with the letter B. Lily found butterflies, a box, Boots and Benny and backpack from Dora, and bubbles.

I also copied out another tongue twister for them and used the Leapfrog to help them learn what B sounds like.  (When you put the letter magnet in the Leapfrog, it sings, “B says buh, B says Buh, every letter makes a sound and B says buh.”  It also sings the alphabet song for them.)

Then we made a butterfly craft using pipecleaners and coffee filters.  The girls coloured the coffee filters with their markers.  I sprayed the coloured filters with water to make the colours run together.  Once the filters dried, we gathered them in the middle and added pipe cleaners for wings.  We used the butterflies to decorate a wall in their room.

When we went for our walk in the afternoon, Sunshine rode her bike and Lily took her bubbles along, and we talked about the “B” sound some more.  For bedtime, we read The Belly Button Book by Sandra Boyton (one of our favourites) and I had them point out the B’s on the page to me.

The Letter C

We continued on Friday with a printable page for the letter C, stickers and cut-out C-words for their collages, and the Leapfrog songs to learn that the letter “C” has two sounds—hard and soft.  Then we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle and did a caterpillar craft with egg cartons and pipe cleaners.  We also read C is for Cookie and baked cookies.

I should mention that all of these activities happened throughout the day; I didn’t just sit down and say, “Now we’re going to work on the letter B.”  The girls coloured their butterflies on Thursday while I cooked them lunch and worked on their collages beside me while I worked on blog posts.

It was easy to establish a habit; after we’d done letter A and B, Sunshine told her dad, “Tomorrow we’re going to work on the letter C.”  I hadn’t even told her that yet (though I was already working on C ideas); she just guessed it!

Have you worked on teaching your children the letters of the alphabet? 

Come back next Friday for the letters DEFG!

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