The teacher in me is very proud of LB's ability to recognize most of his letters. It's not something I have specifically told him we are working on but have just tried to make it a part of our play. I have no intentions of pushing this school stuff on him but when he shows an interest then I want to jump on it. The same way if your kiddo shows an interest in peeing on the potty then you encourage them to use the toilet. (Will that day ever come?) Anyway, when LB started his preschool program in the fall one of the goals they had was that by the end of the school year each child would be able to recognize their own name. So it's been at the front of mind as something to try and reenforce since he only goes to school one morning a week. Here are some easy and fun things we have done to help him identify all the letters, outside of obvious stuff like reading ABC books, and specifically to help him recognize the letters and sequence that make up his own name. Most of the ideas I stole from other people. I would link to the original sources but I've doing most of these things for the past year and I've forgotten. Oops.
1. Whenever we do coloring or a craft, I write his name on the completed work and tell him what it says. He's known for a while the first letter of his name. A while back the librarian at story time mentioned that it should be the most important letter to a young child. I took that heart and would point out that letter whenever we saw it and say "look it's your letter."
2. He has a great puzzle/matching game from Melissa and Doug that is all about matching letters to spell a word. They are all short words like duck, cat and boat. He likes puzzles and matching games so this has been a good fit for him. He'll do several of the boards in a row and is always proud of himself. As he goes through each one, I just make sure I say the letters out loud. Now I can point to the letters and he'll say most of them. The great thing about this puzzle is that all the letters are lowercase. At some point in the past year or so I realized that I was always writing in uppercase and that most signs or other letter related games, books and puzzles seemed to be in uppercase. I recently saw an activity on No Time for Flashcards that was a spring themed matching game for lowercase and uppercase letters. I think I am going to try it with LB and see if he can match lowercase "a" to uppercase "A." It will be an interesting experiment. Sometimes LB gets mixed up on distinguishing between lowercase "b" and "d" and lowercase "h" and "n" are hard for him as well.
3. We play a hide and seek type game with the letters of his name. I have some alphabet magnets so we use those. LB will go wait in the guest room and I'll "hide" the letters in the living room and kitchen. And by hide I mean mostly put out in plain sight but he has to walk around to find them. I've been impressed because I'll say things like "Okay, you have x and y letter so what other ones do you need to find?" And he'll answer correctly. (His name is only 4 letters.) It's been a fun way to talk about the letters in his name. We'll do several rounds of this game. It helps him learn and it saves me from playing chase, which is a current favorite game. Not a fan. We also play with his letter magnets and that play doesn't last too long but I have to think that every little bit counts. He knows that "D" is for Daddy and "P" is for Poppy (his grandpas). He also knows "P" is for other words. I'm less proud of that.
4. Ipad Apps. I try and limit LB's screen time but I do think there are some educational games for the Ipad, if you have one. LB's favorite's are Fish School and Word Wagon. Fish School has some letter games but Word Wagon is the best for letters. It works in the same way that the Melissa and Doug puzzle does but he gets to pick the words to match and then he gets a star after completing 3 words and he gets pretty pumped when he gets a star. There are also more advanced levels where they take away the matching component and the child has to actually spell the word. He's too young for that but I like that hopefully he'll be able to utilize this app for a while. I recommend both apps highly.
5. One of the placemats we use a lot for LB is an alphabet placemat. Every now and then if we are short on conversation at the table then I'll try and incorporate some letter play to help him to stay at the table a little longer. He tends to prefer his world map placement but that's okay too. He's got some strong opinions.
A few months ago, we stopped by his preschool to pay the monthly tuition and I was talking with the director while LB was chatting up one of the assistants. She was letting him play with a label maker, which was highly enjoyable for LB. He can't resist buttons. At one point, she spelled his name with the label maker and printed it out for him. She asked him, "what does this say?" And he blurted out his name proudly. The three ladies all started clapping for him and it made this mama proud! At one of his first soccer classes he was running around and doing what they were supposed to until he saw the sign advertising for the Columbus Crew MLS team. He ran away from the group and went to look at the sign. He then yelled across the field to us, "Look! It's a C!" I gave him a thumbs up and then pointed towards the coach to draw his attention back to soccer. I was a little embarrassed but had to smile.
I'm hoping to expand on his letter recognition over the summer, as long as he continues to show an interest. There isn't really time for letter of the week and I know he'll be doing that in preschool in the fall but maybe we could expand on the letters of his name and do letters of the week that way. We'll see. I just love teaching him and seeing him make connections and associations, even when it's about the letter "P" and all the bathroom humor associated with it. Stories for another day.
1. Whenever we do coloring or a craft, I write his name on the completed work and tell him what it says. He's known for a while the first letter of his name. A while back the librarian at story time mentioned that it should be the most important letter to a young child. I took that heart and would point out that letter whenever we saw it and say "look it's your letter."
2. He has a great puzzle/matching game from Melissa and Doug that is all about matching letters to spell a word. They are all short words like duck, cat and boat. He likes puzzles and matching games so this has been a good fit for him. He'll do several of the boards in a row and is always proud of himself. As he goes through each one, I just make sure I say the letters out loud. Now I can point to the letters and he'll say most of them. The great thing about this puzzle is that all the letters are lowercase. At some point in the past year or so I realized that I was always writing in uppercase and that most signs or other letter related games, books and puzzles seemed to be in uppercase. I recently saw an activity on No Time for Flashcards that was a spring themed matching game for lowercase and uppercase letters. I think I am going to try it with LB and see if he can match lowercase "a" to uppercase "A." It will be an interesting experiment. Sometimes LB gets mixed up on distinguishing between lowercase "b" and "d" and lowercase "h" and "n" are hard for him as well.
3. We play a hide and seek type game with the letters of his name. I have some alphabet magnets so we use those. LB will go wait in the guest room and I'll "hide" the letters in the living room and kitchen. And by hide I mean mostly put out in plain sight but he has to walk around to find them. I've been impressed because I'll say things like "Okay, you have x and y letter so what other ones do you need to find?" And he'll answer correctly. (His name is only 4 letters.) It's been a fun way to talk about the letters in his name. We'll do several rounds of this game. It helps him learn and it saves me from playing chase, which is a current favorite game. Not a fan. We also play with his letter magnets and that play doesn't last too long but I have to think that every little bit counts. He knows that "D" is for Daddy and "P" is for Poppy (his grandpas). He also knows "P" is for other words. I'm less proud of that.
4. Ipad Apps. I try and limit LB's screen time but I do think there are some educational games for the Ipad, if you have one. LB's favorite's are Fish School and Word Wagon. Fish School has some letter games but Word Wagon is the best for letters. It works in the same way that the Melissa and Doug puzzle does but he gets to pick the words to match and then he gets a star after completing 3 words and he gets pretty pumped when he gets a star. There are also more advanced levels where they take away the matching component and the child has to actually spell the word. He's too young for that but I like that hopefully he'll be able to utilize this app for a while. I recommend both apps highly.
5. One of the placemats we use a lot for LB is an alphabet placemat. Every now and then if we are short on conversation at the table then I'll try and incorporate some letter play to help him to stay at the table a little longer. He tends to prefer his world map placement but that's okay too. He's got some strong opinions.
I'm hoping to expand on his letter recognition over the summer, as long as he continues to show an interest. There isn't really time for letter of the week and I know he'll be doing that in preschool in the fall but maybe we could expand on the letters of his name and do letters of the week that way. We'll see. I just love teaching him and seeing him make connections and associations, even when it's about the letter "P" and all the bathroom humor associated with it. Stories for another day.
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