One Day in School

Letters are all around us. It is important that children recognize letters and know the sound they make. Read this book to help children learn their letters. Be sure to click on the little black triangle on each page to listen to the letter sounds.

Extension Activity: It's fun to play letter games with children. As you walk down the street, or in the hallway of school, play "I spy" with letters.  Say: "I spy with my little eye a letter a. If the children do not see the letter, give them clues.  Say: "The a is on the street sign, or the a is on this bulletin board. The a is on a yellow sign or the a is on the window." Then try another letter.

Extension Activity: A great way to help children learn letters is to have them make the letter shapes. Children can use play dough to form alphabet letters.   Help the children roll out long ropes and then bend the rope to make letters.

Extension Activity: Grocery stores have many signs and words. When you are in a grocery store, pick a letter to look for that day. See if you can find an "E", for example in each aisle or department. In the classroom, use a grocery store flyer and have children look for a letter on each page. Then ask children to find another letter.

Extension Activity: Use a newspaper or magazine to search for a letter. Choose one letter to look for at a time and if it is an old paper or magazine, have the children to circle all the T's, for example, that they find with a marker.

Extension Activity: Children see letters in regular size print in book almost everyday.  Use sidewalk chalk to make giant letters outside on the playground or sidewalk.  Play follow the leader and walk on these very large letters.

Extension Activity: Make an alphabet clothes line. Put a different letter on each clothespin.  Cut out "socks" from paper and put a letter on each sock. Have the children hang up the socks using the matching clothespin.

Extension Activity: Make Bingo cards with 3 blocks across and 3 blocks down. Place a letter in each block and then give children a card and marker. Pick a letter and ask children to mark it on their card. Pick letters until someone gets 3 letters in a row and gets "Bingo."

Extension Activity: Help children think of as many words as they can that begin with the same letter. Such as O is for onion, October, ostrich, orange, etc. Write down the words and have children underline the same beginning letter in each word.

Extension Activity: Have a child be an Alphabet Mail Carrier. Give different areas of the classroom a Letter address or at home give different rooms a Letter address. As an example, the computer is on "C Street" and kitchen is on "K Street". Make a small sign at each location such as "Computer Station - C Street" Give the child several envelopes with a letter address, "C street" or "K Street" on the front and have the child deliver the mail to the correct address.

Extension Activity: This idea is a little messy, but a lot of fun. On a table or tray, give a child a very small amount of shaving cream. A little bit of shaving cream goes a long way. Ask the child to spread the shaving cream out over the tray or table top. Some children may need help. Then ask the child to use a finger to draw a letter in the shaving cream.  He can then rub the cream smooth again and draw a new letter.  When finished, have the child help wipe off the table or tray. You can also take this activity outside and put the shaving cream on a piece of foil on the ground.

Extension Activity: Make a Letter Memory Game. Using index cards, make 2 cards for each letter. Shuffle the cards and lay them out on the table upside down. Take turns picking 2 cards at a time to find a matching pair of letters. Start with 5 pairs or 10 total cards and add more pairs as the children get better at finding pairs. You can also make one card an upper case letter and the other card a lower case letter. Children then match upper and lower case letters.

Extension Activity: Make an alphabet book with the children.  Help them come up with ideas for the very difficult letters like Q and X. Let children draw pictures for the book or cut out pictures from magazines and newspaper flyers.

Extension Activity: If you have internet access, there are many online games to help children with upper and lower case matching and alphabet ordering. Below a couple of websites are listed. These games are fun for children and good for occassional use, but remember children will benefit more from an activity with you or other children.

Alphabet order-
http://pbskids.org/lions/games/abcd.html
http://www.learningplanet.com/act/abcorder.asp

Upper case and lower case match -
http://www.quia.com/jg/1859.html

Ask children to tell you about their favorite letter and why they like it.