ABCs
Cheesy ABC and 123 Pretzels
Little helpers can practice measuring and pouring while making these pretzels with you, and they will love shaping the pretzels into letters, numbers, or any shapes they choose. 1) Preheat oven to 425. 2) Lightly spray a cookie sheet with vegetable oil spray. 3) Put 1 1/2 cups warm water into measuring cup and sprinkle 1 TB dry yeast and 1 TB sugar onto water. 4) In a large ...(read more)
Letter Hunt
Get a stack of index cards and write one letter on each card and then hide them around a room. After hiding the letters, ask your child to find as many of the index cards as possible. As they find each card tell them to say the letter out loud. As the child better learns their letters you can hide several different letters around the room but ask them to ...(read more)
Creating an ABC Book
Help your child to create his or her own ABC book. Start by cutting paper into even sizes (like cutting 8 1/2 by 11 inch pieces of paper into half). These will form the pages of the book. Over the course of a week or so, create the pages in the book. Start with 'A', write a capital 'A' and a lowercase 'a'. Talk about an item ...(read more)
Letter Learning
Start by drawing a big outline of a letter on a piece of paper and let your child color or paint inside the lines. Then cut it out and stick it up or you can join it to other letters in an alphabet garland or a special word or name.(read more)
Crawling to the ABCs
Go to an educational store or other store that sells alphabet stencils. Then place the alphabet stencils on a tile floor in your home. Place them randomly so that the child will learn the letters individually. Then cover the stencils with clear contact paper. Watch as your baby discovers the fun of crawling over the letters. As they approach or crawl over a letter you ...(read more)
Consonant Crazy
This is a music activity that my daughter learned in preschool, and now she applies it to any song that she knows. Two tunes that work well are "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" and the traditional birthday song. Choose a consonant letter from the alphabet and use that sound to sing every word of the song. Example: B = Bed, Boulders, Bees and Boes or ...(read more)
Finger Painting with Table Salt
Pour a lot of salt onto a cookie sheet and have your child practice their numbers or ABCs with their finger.(read more)
Pancake Letters and Numbers
If you are making pancakes for breakfast, try putting the batter in a squeeze bottle (i.e. an empty, washed out plastic ketchup bottle). Make letters or numbers in the pan. Let your child request the letter or number he or she wants for breakfast! Use the chance to talk about the letter or number.(read more)
Name Trees
Cut out a tree trunk with several branches. Then cut out leaves in various colors -- for a spring tree, you can use lighter shades of green; for an autumn tree, use reds and oranges. Have your child write each letter in his or her name on a separate leaf and then glue the leaves on the branches to spell out their name. Lots of fun and ...(read more)
'Word of the Day' Jar
Expand your child's vocabulary! Create a 'Word of the Day' Jar for your house. Decorate a large jar in any way you want -- glued-on tissue paper, construction paper, stickers, etc. You can encourage your child to practice his or her letters by dressing up the jar with various letters of the alphabet! Once it's decorated, fill the jar up with all sorts of words written on ...(read more)
Bathtub ABCs and 123s
Squirt shaving cream on the sides of the bathtub and have your child use his or her pointer finger to practice writing numbers and letters. They can 'erase' by smearing the shaving cream and starting over again.(read more)
License Plate Alphabet Game
A fun road trip game: Try to find each letter of the alphabet on the license plates of cars. Start with "A", and the first person in the car to find the letter gets a point. Keep going until you get to Z!(read more)
Child's First Reading Book
Children often recognize logos from stores that you frequent. In fact, I remember that one of my son's first words was Costco. In the very early stages of reading, it is fun to make a book for your child that he can read without any help. Begin by finding logos from places that your child will recognize, cut them out and glue them into a book. For example, ...(read more)
What's Your Middle Name?
This is a fun game that helps kids learn their letters. We have an imaginary friend named Samuel Serendipity and we continually change the first letter of his middle name and then think of all the words his middle name could be. Ex. For Samuel P. Serendipity, my son and I brainstorm all the words we can think of that start with the letter P. Everything from ...(read more)
Around-the-House ABCs
Label different items in your house with the letter that the word begins with. For example, a cabinet would be labeled with a C. This activity is great for children who have built their vocabulary and are ready to begin working on pre-reading skills. This activity helps them to begin to associate letter sounds with the letters themselves. This activity can be as basic or as ...(read more)
Name Mosaic
Write your child's name on a piece of paper in large block letters. Have her use safety scissors to cut several colors of construction paper into small pieces (you can do this part for younger children). Next have her decorate her name by gluing the scraps of paper onto the block letters. Let your child help you choose a special place to display her name mosaic. This ...(read more)
Finger Painting with Pudding
Prepare pudding and tape paper to a table. Feel free to add food coloring to make a more colorful 'paint.' Give each child his or her own container of pudding, then let them use their fingers to paint on the paper. In addition to creating a pudding masterpiece, you can also teach your children about the five senses by talking about how the pudding feels between their fingers, ...(read more)
Clothes Pin Names
Write each letter of your child's name on a separate clothes pin. On a piece of paper, write your child's name. Mix up the clothes pins and have your child find each letter in their name, match it to the letter on the paper, and clip it on the paper. For an added challenge, add extra letters on clothes pins that your child will have to eliminate ...(read more)
Hiding Letters
This is a new way to use your magnetic refrigerator letters. Place a few on your kitchen table and cover each one with an object that starts with that letter (e.g. cover "C" with a cup, "B" with a bowl, etc.). Then ask your child to guess where each letter is before looking. (Or you can start with just one letter but several objects.) New readers ...(read more)
Learning to Write
This is a good activity for parents whose children are not in a preschool yet but are interested in learning to write letters, or where the preschool is not teaching at that level yet. My daughter loves to "trace" letters that I write to practice her form, so I make hand-made simple worksheets for her using dashes to form the letter and then give her a sticker for the ...(read more)
Alphabet Clean-Up
Here's a fun way to get kids to clean up and learn their ABC's. When it's time to clean up say, "Find two things that start with the letter 'C' and put it in your toy box" or "Let's put away the train. What letter does train start with?" Go through all the letters until the toys are put away.(read more)
Rainbow Letters
This helps kids learn directionality in forming letters and can help reinforce name writing. On a piece of construction paper write the first letter of your child's name with a dark marker. First have your child trace the letter with her finger, using the correct formation sequence. You can draw direction arrows if you wish. Have a rainbow array of crayons for your child to trace ...(read more)
Super Letter Hunt
Play a hidden alphabet game with your child. Write each letter of your child's name on a separate piece of paper. Then hide the letters throughout your house and send your child on a letter treasure hunt. When she has found them, help her put the letters in order to spell her name. When she has mastered this, try it with other words. Another variation ...(read more)
Shopping List
Little ones always seem to be interested in going to the grocery store and being in charge of the shopping list. But since most kids under the age of 5 can't read, you can create a special shopping list just for them. With your child, take old newspapers and circulars and look for pictures of the items you need. Help your child to cut out the pictures and glue them ...(read more)
Letter of the Week
A fun way to learn the alphabet is to focus on learning one new letter each week. You can use letter flash cards and letter magnets to reinforce the shape of the letter, and print a page that relates to the letter from the internet for your child to color each day. There are many sites available; it is easy to find seven different pictures for the letter ...(read more)
Mitten Sequencing
Trace 11 mitten shapes on construction paper and cut them out. Write one number from 0 to 10 on each mitten. String a piece of yarn between two chairs to resemble a clothesline. Have your child clip the mittens with clothespins in order from 0 to 10. You could also use this activity to practice putting letters in order.(read more)
Feeling Letters
Begin by asking your child to request a letter and then trace that letter on your child's back. Now that you've given your child an idea of the activity, begin with the game. Trace the outline of a different letter on your child's back. Ask your child to guess what the letter is by feel. A simple game, but a lot of fun!(read more)
Pick a Letter!
Kids become fascinated by letters and sounds at a very early age. To encourage this fascination and to develop pre-reading skills and phonemic awareness, this is a simple game you can play at home or on the go. There is a 26-sided die with each letter of the alphabet in the game Scattergories. You can take turns rolling the die and see if each player can come ...(read more)
Spot Your Name Bingo
This is a fun way to encourage letter recognition and spelling of your child's name: Have your child write down her name on a piece of paper or if they are still learning to write their name, write it yourself in bold, capital letters. Then, using alphabet flashcards, which you can either purchase or make yourself, show each letter, one-by-one. When a letter matches ...(read more)
Spying the ABC's
While in the car ask your child to look at billboards, road signs, license plates and buildings to find the letters of the alphabet in order. For instance, to find an 'A'-the child might see Applebee's and say it aloud, then move on to finding a sign or billboard with the letter B. To make it more challenging, if the child is old enough, she can write ...(read more)
Hopscotch Spelling
A great way to improve spelling skills while having fun! Using either sidewalk chalk or foam interlocking-letter squares (you can find them at Right Start or Ross), list the alphabet. Say a word and have your kid(s) spell out the word hopping on the letters. Younger kids can play by just finding a letter and then progressing to finding the letter that sounds like "ssss."(read more)
Yarn letters
Write the letters of the alphabet -- or the letters of your child's name, for a shorter activity -- on individual pieces of construction paper. Then, help your child dip a piece of yarn into a bowl of liquid starch. Your child can then place yarn on top of the letter on the construction paper. Once the letters dry, your child can practice tracing the letters with ...(read more)
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Savvy Welcomes Jacque Grillo's 10 New Year's Resolutions for Parents
TEN PARENT RESOLUTIONS FOR THE NEW YEAR Resolve that one day each week will be a day without television, videos, computers, and electronics of any sort. Shut the things off. Reclaim your homes. Resist the pressure to become your child's
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