ALL ABOUT THE ALPHABET

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Derick Solomon Stevenson
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1 ALL ABOUT THE ALPHABET Alphabet Activities Created by Travis Hutchens

2 Introduction Literacy Foundations For students to be successful in literacy, they must start with a strong foundation. The first step to any literacy program is learning, using, and mastering the alphabet. This is a primary focus in many Kindergarten classrooms. It is important to keep alphabet activities varied, short, and wholesome. Generally, students enjoy working with the letters of the alphabet. There are many ways to work with letters, and we can easily spread alphabet activities across the curriculum by incorporating art, games, counting, and cooperative activities. The Activities All of the activities listed in this packet are tried and true student favorites. These are my go-to activities when I am needing an extra center activity, a whole-class activity, or when I need to fill a 10 minute block of class time. All of these activities require materials that are readily available at home or at school, and they are meant to be quick add-ons to your curriculum. There are 4 categories of resources included in this packet. They are listed and described below. Beginning Letter Recognition These activities reinforce students knowledge of letter recognition. Students will write, trace, and create letters with various types of media. Students will also begin to work with beginning sounds by identifying objects and pictures whose names begin with a specific letter sound. Alphabet Art The activities in this section combine letter instruction and arts and crafts. Students will draw letters, paint letters, decorate letter patterns, and construct letters using various craft materials. This section has a great focus on letter formations and can help with handwriting. Alphabet Games Students love playing games - as individuals, with partners, or with the whole class. This section has a great emphasize on letter recognition and partner letter matching. Tabletop Letter Fun This section offers activities that can be completed on a desktop. These activities can be done with students working on their own, with a partner, in small-groups, or as a whole class. Many of these activities focus on letter formation and letter recognition Travis Hutchens

3 Beginning Letter Recognition Below are a few suggested activities for establishing and improving beginning letter recognition. Use these activities during centers, circle time, in small-groups, or at home! Cookie Monster Let students use alphabet cookie cutters and play dough to create letter cookies. Have students make their names, classmates names, sight words, or new vocabulary words. Head, Shoulders, Knees & the ABCs Let small groups of students use their bodies to create letters from the alphabet. Children can lay down, curl up, or stretch out on the floor. Take pictures from above so that students can see the letter they made. Goin' On a Letter Hunt Write letters on index cards and hide them around the room. Let individual students search for a specific letter. Use clues such as "hot" and "cold" to help students find their way to the letter card. Photo Express Take your students on a walk outside or through the school to look for objects beginning with a specific letter sound. When students find an object, use a Polaroid camera to take a picture of the item. Try to get a few pictures. When you get back to the classroom, let groups of students tape the pictures onto sheets of construction paper and write the object word underneath the photo. Students can decorate the pages. Compile the pages into a Letter "B" photo book (or whichever letter you are focusing on). Salty Writing Fill a shoebox lid with a layer of salt (or sugar). Let students practice writing letters in the salt. Letter Bugs Use chenille stems to create letter bugs. First, make a letter with chenille stems. Then, cut some stems into small pieces. Use the small pieces to add legs and antennas to the letter bugs. You can glue them onto a craft stick to make little letter bug puppets Travis Hutchens 2

4 Beginning Letter Recognition - continued - Pretzel Capitals Use pretzel sticks to practice making capital letters. Break pretzel sticks in half for "little lines". Eat the pretzels when the activity is finished. Humpty Dumpty Letters Trace large letter templates onto poster board. Cut out the letters. Cut each letter into smaller pieces (judge the number of pieces based on your students ability level). Let students put the letters "back together again." Dot-To-Dot With students working as partners, have each student create a dot-to-dot puzzle for their partner to complete. They should draw a letter using only dots. Partners switch puzzles and trace over the dots to create the letter. Students can then use craft materials to decorate the letters. Crafty Letters Set out a large number of craft sticks. Let students construct capital letters using the craft sticks. See if each child can spell their first name, in all capitals, using the craft sticks. Certain capital letters contain curves (B, D, C, etc.) and cannot be made with the straight craft sticks. In this case, let students use strips of yarn to create the curves. Sandpaper Spelling Trace letter templates onto sandpaper. Let students cut out the sandpaper letters. Students can manipulate the letters on a workmat to create names, sight words, or vocabulary words. Let students trace the sandpaper letters with their fingers. (This also makes an excellent tactile book!) Travis Hutchens

5 Alphabet Art Below are some great craftivities to use in your art center. You can also complete these craftivities when teaching specific letters throughout the school year. Decorating Letters Trace large letter patterns on light cardboard. Brainstorm with students, some objects that have a beginning sound of the focus letter. Collect these items through small toys, clipart, or magazine photographs. Glue the objects onto the cardboard letter pattern. Display the letters around the room. Letter Mosaics Let students look through magazines to find specific letters. Instruct students to cut out the letters in a square shape. Once a few letters are cut, have students arrange the letter squares on a sheet of paper and glue them down, making a mosaic. Students could also simply create letter collages. Writing on the Wall Write letters on the sidewalks or walls outside of your school using sidewalk chalk. Students love to write their letters nice and big. There is no clean up, because the rain takes care of this for you!! Stitch-a-Letter Make letter patterns out of light cardboard or paper plates. Using a hole punch, make holes around the edge of the letter, about 1 inch apart. Give students some yarn and let them stitch up the letters. You can place a piece of tape around one end of the yarn to create a stiff starting point. Tie off the yarn when finished, and proudly display the stitch-a-letter's. Paint Me a Letter Give each student a piece of paper and some painters tape. Let students create a letter on their papers using the painters tape. (Capital letters, or letters with sticks are best for this activity.) Set out some tempera paint and paintbrushes. Direct students to paint their entire paper, in whichever way they want. Once the papers have dried, let students remove the painters tape to reveal their letter Travis Hutchens 4

6 Alphabet Art - continued - Mystery Letters Students can complete this activity while working with a partner. Students should use a white crayon and draw two or three "invisible" letters onto a sheet of white paper. Trade papers. Use watercolors and paintbrushes to paint the page. The letters will pop out and reveal themselves when they are covered with the paint. SpongeBob Letters Let students use a set of alphabet sponges and tempera paint to make letter collages. Dip the sponges into the paint and print letters onto a sheet of bond paper. Students can do individual letters, names, or words. Wax Sticks Set out some wax sticks. Encourage students to bend the wax sticks around the create different uppercase and lowercase letters. Students can stick the wax letters onto a sheet of paper, onto their desks, or all over the chalkboard! Letters Made From Clay Show students how to form logs out of clay by rolling it between your hands and a table. Form the logs into letters Travis Hutchens

7 Alphabet Games Use these educational-based games to practice and reinforce alphabet knowledge and phonemic awareness. Letter Concentration Make two sets of letter cards (A-Z) on halved index cards. One set should be uppercase and the other set is lowercase letters. For the game, choose which letters you want to include. You can use the entire alphabet or only specific letters. Once the cards are chosen, place them face down on the table. The game is played with partners. For a turn, a student flips over two cards, trying to find a matching set of letters. When a matching pair is found, the student collects the cards. The person with the most cards at the end of the game is the winner. Letter Bingo Create letter bingo cards for students. To create a card, cut a sheet of paper in half. Dive the card into 5x5 squares. At the top of the card, rather than using the letters of the word BINGO, color in each of the 5 horizontal boxes with a different color for each box. Then, fill the rest of the boxes with letters. Be sure students understand how to play the game. Begin calling out random letters for students. We use Cheerios as our cover-ups. Each winner gets a piece of candy. Letter Lotto Students can play this game on their own. You will need a playing mat, divided into nine 1" squares and a set of nine 1" cards. Fill the squares on the mat with letters you want to practice. Then, fill the small cards with the same letters. Students play the game by placing a little card onto the correct square on the playing mat. You can make the game more challenging by doing uppercase and lowercase letters, by putting in some trick cards into the little card deck, or by making a larger playing mat. The way to win the game is up the teacher. Students may be required to get 4 corners, a row/column, or fill all of the boxes with letter cards. Store the mats and cards in zip baggies. Flashlight Letters You can play this game with the whole class. Turn off all the lights in the room. Use a flashlight to "draw" large letters on the wall or chalkboard. Students try to guess the letter. The first student to correctly guess the letter gets a turn with the flashlight. We play this game until every students has had a chance to draw a letter Travis Hutchens 6

8 Alphabet Games - continued - Letter Search Give each student a section of newspaper and a colored marker. Call out a letter to the class. Students should search their section of newspaper for the letter. Once they have found the letter, they should circle it with their marker and stand up. After all students have found the letter, they sit back down and you call out another letter for them to search for. Play this game for as long as students maintain interest. Letter Clothesline This game reinforces letter matching and partner letters. Take two chairs and place them back to back up against a wall. Place a string between the two chairs to act as the clothes line. Write letters on the the ends of clothespins using a permanent marker. Place 10 letters at a time on the clothesline. Ahead of time, prepare some paper socks by cutting templates out of white construction paper. Write the matching letters on the socks. Place the socks in a basket. One at a time, students will come up and take a sock from the basket. They must find the clothespin with the matching letter and pin the sock on the clothesline. Continue the game until all of the socks have been hung up. Letter Mail This game can be played with individual students or in small groups. Take 3 shoe boxes and cut slits in the tops of the lids, large enough to accommodate a small envelope. On index cards, write capital letters, one letter per card. Tape the cards to the tops of the shoeboxes. Gather a small stack of envelopes. Write the matching lowercase letters on the envelopes (You could write names with the first letter being the target letter). Let students pretend to be mail carriers and deliver the mail to the correct mailbox. Letter Baskets When introducing a new letter, try this fun activity with individual students. On a small laundry basket, tape and index card with the focus letter written on it. Let the student carry the basket around the room and collect items whose names begin with the sound of the focus letter. See which student in your class or small group can find the most items Travis Hutchens

9 Tabletop Letter Fun Each of these activities is designed to be completed on a table top or at a student desk. These activities can be done with the whole class or individually. When working with individual letters, it is best to begin with letters in a child's name. Raised Letters Let students connect with letters through the sense of touch. Print large letters onto index cards (one letter per card). Cover the letters with a line of white glue. Allow the glue to harden. Students can now use their fingers to trace the letter. They should be able to feel a raised letter as they trace. NOTE: Add food coloring to the glue before outlining the letters to make the letters bright and vibrant. Yarn Letters Begin like the activity described above. Instead of letting the glue harden, let students place strips of yarn onto the glue lines. You can use this activity to make full decks of activity cards for students to play with during literacy or ABC centers. Tabletop Letters Use masking tape or painters tape strips to write a students name on their desktop. Have students trace each letter with their finger as you say the name of the letter aloud. Letter Prints This is a continuation of the Tabletop Letters activity above. Lay a piece of paper on top of the taped letters. Let students peel the wrapper from a crayon. Students should use the side of the crayon to do a letter rubbing. Once they are finished, then can remove their papers to reveal their prints. (This activity provides an excellent opportunity to introduce the "Helper Hand" and the importance of keeping our papers stabilized as we write or draw.) Cover the Letters This activity is also done with the masking tape letters form the Tabletop Letters activity above. Set out some small objects and allow students to cover the masking tape letters. They can count how many objects it takes to cover each letter. Some examples of items would be Cheerios, raisins, buttons, pennies, cotton balls, linking cubes, etc Travis Hutchens 8

10 Thank You!! Thank you for downloading this resource. Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, corrections, or any additional ideas that you feel should have made it into this book. Feel free to contact me through TpT or by at: No copyright infringement intended. All rights reserved Travis Hutchens ALL ABOUT THE ALPHABET Created by: Travis Hutchens Be sure to check out my other alphabet resources. Just search for "ALL ABOUT THE ALPHABET" on TpT! Happy Teaching!!

teach children the pattern and shape of numeral forms.

CHAPTER 6: NUMERAL WRITING numeral writing activities Mathematics Their Way Summary Newsletter teach children the pattern and shape of numeral forms. concepts of quantity, order of the number names, one-to-one