I am teaching an ABC class to 5 & 6 year olds for the next 10 weeks. The class is one hour, one day a week. My problem is: So many ideas for activities and crafts, so few class days. So far I am doing the squishy Ziploc bag (with dyed lotion inside) to trace letters with finger for sensory activity; Alphabet fishing with a magnet (letters written on the fish); Pretzel stick letter construction. What are your tried and true activities and crafts for teaching ABC's (letter recognition, writing, letter sounds)? Bonus if you add a link to the website with instructions! Thanks in advance!
I am new to this forum and not sure how it all works, but it looks like 96 people have seen the post, but no replies. It looked to me like other posts were active and had many replies, so I thought this was a good chance to get some kid-tested ideas. I am commenting here in hopes of bumping up my post- not sure if that is how it works, but I really still need help!
I use freebies and lower priced alphabet activities I find on teacherspayteachers to reinforce/add practice for my students. My school has a very specific reading program (Success for All) that I have to use to teach letter sounds/names/shapes but I supplement with whatever my kids need. This current group loves writing on my main whiteboard and their personal ones. We practice/discuss letter names/sounds/shape of ones that have been introduced (currently at 8 so it's not the whole alphabet yet so they can really drill it) and then they write on the whiteboard as I walk around helping them or congratulating them on the shape. I usually try to give them a set time to carefully write the letter I asked for multiple times then have them circle their best one and hide it at their chest until we count to 3 and they flip it around to "show me." I've had them "write" the letter in sand with a pencil. We've played "I Have, Who Has?" with letter names (I believe I found it on tpt) and will play it after we learn sounds. I've played Alphabet Bingo and matching games, etc. Really anything that can be seen as a game or fun with this age group is your best bet.
I'm new to kinder this year but my kinder so love the Heidi songs alphabet song videos. They have the visual of seeing the letter they do a dance with each song that includes writing the letter in the air for the kinesthetic learners and muscle memory, their is the song for the auditory learners, and each song has the letter sound and an explanation of the writing stroke for printing. Eg. "The capital L goes down and then turn the corner and there it ends. The lowercase is is one straigh line. Oh I can make an L just fine. So let's make an L and easy letter /l/ /l/ /l/ /l/ and easy letter /l/ /l/ /l/ /l/. Now I know my alphabet-er." "The Aa goes /a/ /a/ /a/.The Aa goes /a/ /a/ /a/. The big A is a mountain with a stick across like that. Oh The Aa goes /a/ /a/ /a/.The Aa goes /a/ /a/ /a/. The little a is a circle with a stick right after that. Oh The Aa goes /a/ /a/ /a/. The Aa goes /a/ /a/ /a/. I rented them on Vimeo for 7$ and I stream them through my computer to the projector. The kids sing and dance and really seem to like them and I had a lot of incoming kinders with very little knowledge of letters, sounds of even understanding of the alphabetic principal and they have improved dramatically over just 6 weeks.
