It seems we go over the letter for the whole week and they still dont know them..I was thinking of things maybe like making a letter necklace and having them wear them, or having them on the table under clear contact paper so they see them a lot..any other ideas besides making crafts that start with that letter and just going over them daily.. rose
Honestly, I think teaching 3s the letters is more like planting a seed...if it sprouts (aka they learn them), then great...if not, they are at least learning the terminology of language (letters, words, sounds & phonemic awareness skills) so they're ready to really learn the letters as a 4 yr old. However, if you are still looking for more ideas, I have the letters laminated & I have the kids trace them with their fingers. We listen to a song for each letter (Scholastic ABC Flip Chart) & we do a craft for each letter (filling in each bubble-letter with something letter oriented...Aa had alphabet stampers, Bb they colored blue and glued on buttons). You could also hang several alphabet letters from the ceiling or around the classroom and play a game, "walk to the P, hop to the C, skip to the R, etc" *I mostly do the same things with the 3s that I do with my 4s, just not as intensely...we read the same story and do modified versions of the same craft, but they don't help me brainstorm a list of words starting with that letter & they don't do handwriting practice for homework with that letter. They also don't bring home an object to be placed in their "Alphabet Boxes" which is a year-long letter-learning-phonemic-awareness-type activity that the parents can work on with the kids at home.
I teach 4's and we do letter of the week. This week was Aa and we did the following: Each morning, we sing the song (to the Wheels on the Bus) The Aa on the bus says /a/, /a/, /a/, /a/, /a/, /a/, /a/, /a/, /a/, the Aa on the bus says /a/, /a/, /a/, all day long, then we brainstorm words that begin with Aa. We looked through magazines for pictures of things that begin with Aa or words that start with Aa and cut them out. We glued them to a large A cutout that we hung from the ceiling. We sprayed shaving cream on a table and had the children "write" with their fingers the uppercase and lowercase A, we made the Aa out of playdough, we practice writing the upper and lower case letter Aa on writing paper, we have letter builders that put the pieces of the letter together using sticks like a puzzle, we made an ant craft, we read The Berenstain's A Book, Dr. Seuss' ABC book, and other alphabet books, the children circle the upper and lower case letter Aa's that are in my afternoon message, they find the a's in their names on their name cards, and they bring in something for show and tell that starts with the letter A. I know it seems like a lot, but I think repetition is key. I also believe that writing the letter will help them recognize it. This may be too much for your 3's though.
At age three, I would expect just letter awareness, not recognition. If anything, they might recognize the letters in their name. Are you being directed by someone to teach them letters?
I am having great success with my 3 yr olds. By that, I mean that they can tell me what letter we are learning about by Wednesday and a few words that start with that letter. They usually forget it all by the following Monday...but I'm planting seeds. My most successful activity is 'Hide the Letter'. I laminate whatever letter we are learning, have them hide their eyes, and I hide the letter. The run around the room trying to find it. Once it is found, I ask them to tell me a word that starts with that letter. We repeat this a few times. They adore this game and never get tired of it. I haven't found anything else that teaches them as quickly. To add something extra, I count to 10 in Spanish before they can open their eyes.
something fun that I used to do with the 3 yr. olds is provide an "Alphabet Snack". have a signup sheet each week so that a parent can bring a special snack for all students. Example: A - parent brings apples. B- parent brings bananas. C - cucumbers, D-donuts, etc... I don't know if this will help, but it sure will be tasty! I also did an Alphabet Craft: A - make an alligator out of toilet paper rolls, B - paint a butterfly, etc...
I did this when I taught kindergarten & we reviewed 2-3 letters per week. THe parents loved being able to be involved this way & I would send home a list of suggestions for each of the letters, taking some of the guess-work out of it (but some were really creative, too!). It can get pretty cumbersome, though, and it is a lot of work (although it wouldn't be as bad if you're doing a letter a week, as opposed to 3/week like I mentioned we did in K).
I doa letter a week with me threes---I have a sign in my cirlcle area that says "Leter of the week" and a place under it to hang my laminated letter cards--i hang jsut the letter we are doing. Every day during circle we review the letter of the week and I made this little ditty that goes ; A says a A says a a says a like Apple (a = short a sound) this week we did B with the word baby . A few of the kids actually came up with their own B word!. We practice writing the letter couple of times during the week and I try to get a craft activity in that relates to the letter. Today we made Beautiful Bs-- I cut out giant letter Bs and they each decorated one. We also review the alphabet at circle with giantflash cards that I made that have the letter (upper case only) and pictures of words that start with that letter alligator, apple, arrow for A, balloons, baby, ball for B etc). I have magnetic letters in my easel station, the alpahbet along one wall in my room and fun story books that have the ABCs in them. We also occassionaly watch educational videos about the alphabet--
imo it's not age approp. to teach 3's letters. exposure is great and later in the year working on their name. it seems when they are 4 the lightbulb comes on!
Tracie, I wondered if someone would bring that up. I too, believe that 3 is too young to teach letters--per Piaget and other experts. Exposure is great, but I would not expect much actual learning--just rote.
Hmmm - I guess it depends on your definition of "teaching" - I think that most ppl assume that threes aren't going to "get" all of the letters, but that isn't to say that it isn't necessarily appropriate for them. I mean, we have to start exposure at some point in time & to me, that is teaching them. Just like anything else (cutting, printing, counting, etc...), the more they're exposed to it and "taught" it and put it into practice, the more they will learn it. That said, I definitely don't think it's appropriate to assess 3s on their letter knowledge (with any sense of expectancy anyway).
for this reason I set up the letters as a group we learn together. We don't do the letter of the week, the letters are more of a chat "oh, what sound do you hear in the beginning of Taquito!!" "I think it matches the sound at the beginning of Teacher". And so on. This isn't really directed at the younger students, but as I have said often I have a mixed class. So some of us are working on letter while others of us aren't ready. We work on letter formation (print) only in relation to our own names or maybe writing a note to others. The names start out very age appropriately, and then narrow down near kindergarten. We do finally the summer before kindergarten begin to point out the "monkey tails" on the D'neilian that we are to teach before kindergarten. By learning the letters as a group and then in relation to other names we learn a mix of capitals and we learn more than the 10 necessary to pass the assesment. We do work near the kinder entry to ensure that the children can find the sound and match it to the letter name. But it is conversational as well. Lots of rhyming games and phonemic awareness games here. Little worksheets or other big kid activities.
