by Barbie L.
With the school year starting my family’s crafts have turned a little more academic. Learning the ABC’s doesn’t have to be dry and repetitive. Here are some fun, unforgettable ways for kids to learn letters and letter sounds.
Handprint Alphabet
Help your child make handprint animals for every letter of the alphabet. Googly eyes, sequins, feathers, and construction paper make for fun add-ons.
Found Items Alphabet
Cut letters out of cardstock and have your child think of everyday items from around your home that you could glue onto each letter to represent it. We used photos for some of our letters, too!
Alphabet Dice Search
Once we had the above alphabet stuck to the wall I brought out a 30-sided alphabet die with lowercase letters, let my child roll a letter, then asked her to find the uppercase letter on the wall that matched it. A 30-sided die is pretty exciting, so she had a blast!
Alphabet Actions Cards
We found a set of free printable “ABC Exercise Cards” on Homeschool Share and had so much fun with them that we decided to make our own set. I told my child the sound of each letter and asked her to think of actions that began with the sound. I wrote the letter and the corresponding action she thought of on each card, and she drew the pictures (older children could do the writing too!) Since it was her game, she got to make up the rules: 1) Throw all the cards up in the air and let them scatter on the ground. 2) Of the ones facing up, pick up the card that’s closest to the beginning of the alphabet and do that action. 3) Set that card aside, and collect up the rest to repeat the game from the start until you’ve done all the actions.
Magic Paper Towel Pictures Alphabet
Follow this tutorial from Messy Little Monster to make magic paper towel pictures with hidden alphabet letters. Have your child guess the letter the animal starts with, then set the paper towel on top of water to reveal the answer.
Uppercase/Lowercase Dot Sticker Match
There are so many activities you can do with dot stickers, and this is one of the simplest ones to set up. Write uppercase letters on a sheet of paper and lower case letters on dot stickers. Ask your child to match them up! To trick your child into thinking it’s a different activity when you do it again, stick the sheet of a paper to a wall, or write the uppercase letters on decorative paper, a cardboard box, or a paper towel tube.
Letter Scavenger Hunts
The most basic version of a Letter Scavenger Hunt is to go for a walk around your neighborhood and try to spot every letter of the alphabet. On an indoor day, you can also do it around your home, or even just within your child’s book collection. If you want to delve deeper into alphabet scavenger hunts check out Primary Playground’s letter-by-letter scavenger hunts, which feature a unique hunt for every letter (the one for M shown below).