10 Ways to Sneak in Letter Practice into your Bitties' Daily Routine

Hello Again Readers!

As I'm finding more and more with my own toddler, sometimes the secret to being a good parent is being a sneaky one! Whether you're folding vegetables into mac and cheese, sneaking around the corner to pounce when you think your bitty needs to use the potty, or making cleaning up toys into a game, it certainly takes tact to both interest your toddler, and to direct them to a useful activity. From the ages of 1-4, one of those useful prereading activities is working on letter recognition, or your child being able to name letters. With this age group, however, you can't just drill them with flash cards because:

1. It's not fun for them, and they lose interest.
2. It's not fun for you, because you get frustrated.
3. They're little! Flashcards shouldn't quite be busted out on the regular juuuust yet!

So, you're probably thinking, "Well Reading Specialista, how in the world am I supposed to get my kids to practice their letters?"

It's easier than you think, you just have to be a bit sneaky, and slyly tuck the activities into your child's daily routine! In this post I'll show you 10 ideas for how to include letter recognition into your bitties' routine from morning to bedtime!

**As a disclaimer, I do NOT do ALL of these activities every day, but I do get to all of them a few times within a week!**

Morning

Getting Dressed/Changing Diapers

1. Sing the ABCs

It's simple I know, but it can make a world of difference in opening the door for letter recognition. I began to realize this myself, as I started to think of all the times I changed Charlotte's diaper or her clothes during the day. Instead of looking at this as time wasted in the day, or a chore, I could use it as an opportunity to teach her the ABC song. Every time I change her diaper or her clothes, we sing the song together. When you first start, your little one will be doing a lot of listening, but then gradually, he'll start to pick it up too! To be fair, we don't limit singing this song just to diaper changing time, but we sing the ABCs in the car, during playtime, music time, and on walks, just to name a few! She's picked up the song very well, and now that she can sing her ABCs, she's more ready to apply the letter names in her letter recognition activites throughout the day.

Brushing Teeth

2. Letters in the mirror

Another spot to work on letter recognition is the bathroom mirror. Simply use a dry erase marker and write 1 or 2 letters you're working on with your child. You can change them out every morning, or every few days to surprise your child with a new letter, or you can wipe the mirror clean every night and then write the letters in front of your child so they can watch you make the letters. An example of dialogue during this activity would be:

"Hmmm, I wonder which letters are going to join you today when you brush your teeth! Let's go see! Oh look! What letter is that? You're right! It's an 'M.' Look there's big 'M' and little 'M.' Oh, I'm going to add our other letter from to the mirror now, do you remember this letter? You've got it! It's a 'B.' Here's a big 'B' and a little 'B.' Can you say good morning to our letters?"

**On a side note, your toddler will not judge you for being silly, so don't worry if this exchange feels silly at first!**

Breakfast

3. Making letters with cereal/finding letters in cereal

There are so many fun ideas to practice letter recognition with breakfast food as long as you're willing to throw out the old advice of "don't play with your food!" You can make letter shaped breakfasts for your kids! One easy way to do that is use letter cookie cutters as pancake molds or to cut letters out of pancakes once you've made them. You can also arrange cereal in the shapes of letters before dumping it in the milk. You could even go one step further and buy alphabet cereal and have your little one look for certain letters. Berries, grapes, and banana slices all can be arranged into letter shapes. You can even have your little one practice making their letters with their food! It's a fun and tasty way to keep letter recognition in your morning, and maybe it will help them eat their food too!

Morning Walk

4. Using Wreaths and Letter Monograms

If you're like me, you live in a beautiful neighborhood where people love to decorate their front doors and lawns with single monogram letters of their last names! I've found this to be a wonderful opportunity for Charlotte to practice her letter recognition, out of the alphabet sequence on our walks. Another reason monogram letters are good to practice on, is because they look a little different than typical Arial of Times New Roman Font, which they usually see. This helps children to learn letters when they look a bit different, and thus cements their recognition that much more. Initially, I do most of the work to point out the letters, but now, Charlotte is familiar with these letters and where they show up on our walk. For example, we'll round a bend, and I'll tell her "Oh we're going to be on the lookout for that letter 'H'! Can you find it!?!? That's right! What sound does 'H' make again? Mommy can't remember? That's right! It makes a Hhh Hhh sound!"

If your neighborhood doesn't have a lot of monograms, you can always go on a letter hunt using license plates. We've done that before! For example, one walk, we spent the whole time looking for the letter 'B' which was hiding on the backs of cars and trucks and on signs! It's perfectly fine to repeat the same letter over a few walks! This gives your little one extra practice in really isolating that letter and identifying it among many letters.

Reading Time

5. Include ABC Books in your little one's library

There are honestly a plethora of possibilities when it comes to ABC books and they are SUCH a useful resource for teaching letter recognition to your little ones! The best books are ones that are engaging, bright, show both uppercase and lowercase letters, and that give examples of objects or words that start with the letter featured on the page. The books pictured below are some of my absolute favorites for all of those reasons, but if your little one likes a different ABC book, go with it! Motivation is absolute key, because you want your bitty to read these books again and again and again so they can get constant exposure to these letters and start to learn them!

If you're looking for more suggestions on great ABC books, click the following link http://childrensbooksguide.com/alphabet. It's a pretty impressive list, and it will give you a great starting point!

Lunch Time

Potty Time

6. Keep 3-5 letter flashcards by the potty for your child to practice

At my house, Charlotte is currently in the process of assimilation to the

potty. I hesitate to call it potty training, because with juggling her 3 month old brother Thompson, we haven't been able to get serious yet. As of now, we're at the point where I try to get her to sit on the potty once a day, and just get her comfortable with it. As I initially spent time waiting for her to do something/anything on the potty, I started playing I spy with her with colors in the room. She quickly cemented her recognition of colors and even started to quiz me. It was then that I realized I could use this time to have her practice letters.

In her bathroom, she has 3-5 letter cards at anytime. While she's sitting on the potty, she flips through the cards at her own pace, she talks about them, and every once in a while, I'll ask her to show me a certain card. When I can tell she's just about had enough of looking at her cards, I'll just casually ask her to name the letters on the cards one by one. This is in no way a drill or mindless repetition, but it's at her pace and at her comfort level. So far, it's working well for us. She may not be potty trained, but she's learning those letters! I'll call that a silver lining!

Nap Time

Afternoon Playtime

There are countless opportunities that you can use to play with letters with your child, but here are just a few games/activities that my little one loves!

7. Letter Balloons

After her second birthday, we had balloons all over the house, because she loves them so much. After the initial thrill of batting them around wore off, they would just gathered in corners and sat. As I was about to pop them one night, I realized I could use them to help her learn her letters. I then took 3 of the balloons and wrote both uppercase and lowercase letters on them as pictured.

Now we play a variety of games with them. We'll hide the balloons and then I'll say "Go find the 'A'" balloon!" or I'll get out a laundry basket and say, "Can you put the 'B' balloon in the basket? Good job! Now go get the 'A' balloon!"

Even when we're cleaning up, I refer to the different balloons by their letter name. This way she's getting used to identifying the letters on the balloons and not their locations.

**Note: Make sure to use the same color balloon so your little one isn't confusing learning colors for learning letters!**

8. Coloring Letters

A great way to have little ones interact with letters and practice their early writing skills and coordination is by doing alphabet coloring pages. There are many books you can buy on Amazon that offer great coloring pages and activities to reinforce certain letters. I have some of these that I've bought throughout the years, but I do like using Pinterest as my main source! The reason being that I can easily print multiple pages of 1 or 2 letters for free and have her work on those letters during the week. When you're on Pinterest, simply type in "letter coloring sheets," and a ton of free pins will pop up! I really like the ones that have not just the letter to color, but also trace, and then color objects that start with the targeted letter! Again, this is just another way to expose your child to letters and get them recognizing the letters and naming them!

9. Letter puzzles

There are SO many reason why I love doing letter puzzles with Charlotte!

1. She gets to work on fine motor skills.
2. It demands that you work on letters out of sequence.
3. She's improving her muscles memory for the form of letters as she's fitting them in their spots.
4. We work on sounds of the letters as well as names, because her puzzle has objects associated with the letters.

My absolute FAVORITE brand for letter puzzles is Melissa and Doug, but there are lots of other great ones out there too. Pictured above, there's the classic peg puzzle in the right corner, a Disney version on the top left, a butterfly version where the lowercase pieces help you figure out where to put the uppercase pieces, and Charlotte's new favorite on the bottom left which talks to her when she puts the letters in (for example '"R' is for rose."). These are just a few of the many examples available, and your little ones will enjoy doing them again and again!

Dinner Time

Bath Time

10. Bubble Bath Letters on the Wall

If your toddler is anything like mine, baths don't happen without bubbles. It's pretty much just a house rule! With that said, there's no reason you can't have just as much fun with those bubbles as your little one and use them to reinforce letters one more time before bed! Simply scoop bubbles from the bath and write letters on the wall with them, and ask you child which letter you wrote. Then, your little one can have fun splashing that letter away, clearing the wall for you to write another letter. When they get really good, you can have them make the letters in bubbles and then you can try to guess which letter they wrote! This is an especially fun activity because it's kinesthetic and it's getting your child to make big movements while making the letters. Not to mention, as long as the splashing outside of the tub is kept to a minimum, the clean up is really not too bad!

Bed Time

So there you have it, up to 10 activities you can sneak into your little ones' routines to help them work on their letter recognition! As you're starting out, so as not to make it overwhelming for you or your little one, I would suggest just picking 2 activities from the list to try a day, and focus on one letter. When both you and your little one feel more comfortable with the activities you can gradually expand to do more of them in a day! As with all things on my blog, remember to keep it fun and stress free! That's the best way your little one is going to learn and the best way to guarantee that you will keep providing those quality opportunities for your bitty to practice her letters, because you won't feel overwhelmed either!

Have fun with that ABC practice, and until next time...

Yours in Literacy,

The Reading Specialista

The Books I Buy for my Little Readers

Hello Readers,

Hopefully most of you are officially on your summer break! With the kids at home full-time and vacations starting to be planned, I imagine you've already made quite a few trips to the store (or Amazon) to pick up summer supplies. From swimsuits, to bug spray, suntan lotion, and brand new flip flops, summer vacation always seems shiny and new in June! Today, I'm writing to you to give some recommendations for some new summer books you might want to buy your itty bitties along with all of their other summer fun items! I get asked all the time, "Yeah, I know you use those books for your class, but what do you buy for your own daughter?" or "What series or books do you recommend for my PreK student to read?" Well, today you're in luck, because right before the end of the school year, I went on a big Scholastic Books shopping trip, and I bought a whole bunch of books for my daughter. Today, I'm going to tell you about 5 of my favorite books/series that I bought for her, why I like them, and how you can use them to help your little readers improve their reading skills this summer!

1. Clifford Books

Appropriate for: Ages 0-8

Why I like them

Clifford books are some of my favorites to use for a variety of reasons. First of all, who doesn't love a big red dog? In my experience, I've never met or taught a child who passed up the chance to read a Clifford book in this age range. The characters are wholesome, and there are a TON of books to choose from, so once you get your kid hooked, he will be occupied with the series for quite some time!

Now for more of the technical reasons, Clifford books offer a wealth of sight words! In fact, whenever I have a student within this age range that needs to develop their sight words, I will almost always reach for a Clifford book and start doing repeated readings on them. The plots within the books also offer opportunities to practice comprehension strategies such as making predictions, connections, working on retell, and questioning all of which are appropriate for this age range! The format of the books is also very predictable. For example, almost every books starts with "Hi, I'm Emily Elizabeth, and this is my dog Clifford." Although this might drive my more cynical parents nuts, this repetition is actually great for your little ones to develop their concepts of print and to start to "read the book" themselves. You will soon find, you'll start the first page for them, and they'll finish it, because they know what is going to be said. So in short...

How you can use them

*Work on sight words (and fluency through repeated readings)
*Have your kids practice comprehension strategies such as predictions, connections, retell, and questioning
*Strengthen concepts of print by pointing to words as they are being read within these predictable books

2. BOB Books

Appropriate for: Ages 0-8 (end of 2nd grade)

Why I like them

This series of books is truly an amazing one, because it offers leveled books from emergent readers (alphabet books and prereading skills) to more advanced decodable readers (books that focus on a certain word pattern or phonics skill) including long vowels and more complex word families. You buy the series in little sets, so as you see here, I bought a Rhyming Words set and Set 1 of the Beginning Readers. I really wanted the alphabet set for my 2 year old, but Scholastic was not selling them at this time, so I make sure to visit the library frequently to check them out for Charlotte. 

As a disclaimer, do NOT let the illustrations fool you. You may think that based on the cover and illustrations that you'd rather pass, but as mentioned the books that are in the set all offer excellent practice for the skill or level that the set suggests. For example, in this book Dan's Plan, (from the rhyming words set) the rhyming pattern is the -an family. Not only is this reinforced in the story, but on the last page, it highlights all of the -an words and other useful sight words. When Charlotte is ready to read this book, not only would I read the book with her, but we'd also use that last page to go over the -an pattern, and I could easily make flashcards to practice sight words with her based on the ones they suggest at the back. Between that helpful guide and repeated readings of the story, she'd quickly learn that pattern. Before she's ready to read it independently, however, I could read it to her, and ask her to listen for the rhyming words and tell me when she hears them. There's just SO much you can do with these books, and if you'd rather forgo the cost of buying all the sets, your local library most likely has them on the shelves!

How you can use them

*Alphabet recognition practice with the alphabet set

*Phonemic awareness (understanding the sounds in our language) practice with the rhyming set

*Sight word recognition and fluency (how smoothly your child reads the book aloud) by reading the books with your little ones

*Retell practice by having your little one tell you what the story was about

3. Frog on a Log?

Appropriate for: Ages 0-8 (end of 2nd grade)

Why I like it

Frog on a Log? is truly an adorable and playful book that really highlights rhyming words and patterns for our little readers. I got interested in this book, because it was highlighted at the Scholastic Book Fair this year, and I got the chance to preview it at that time. Throughout the book, the main character, the frog, is trying to find out why he has to sit on the log. The cat informs him that he himself has to sit on a mat, and then goes on to talk about other animals and the rhyming objects they have to sit on. Beyond the amusing and bright illustrations, this book is really great for beginning readers, because it allows them to expand their vocabulary and work on rhyming words, which is a vital skill for our littlest readers! While reading this book, you can easily have your child fill in the blank for you by saying which object an animal has to sit on. Because of the illustrations in the book, your little one that's JUST starting to work on rhyming words can easily find the rhyming object from the illustration, and as they get better, they will be able to fill in the blank without looking at the pictures. It's basically an example of a playful book where you can sneak in some valuable rhyming and vocabulary practice!

How you can use them

*Have your child practice rhyming words

*Increase your child's vocabulary (some of the objects in the story are not objects they would usually see)

*Have your child work on sequencing by having your child tell the order of animals and objects in the story. (Tell me which animal they mentioned first in the story. Okay, then what? Right! What did that animal sit on?)

4. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie Series

Appropriate for: Ages 0-8 (End of 2nd grade)

Why I like them

Between the adorable illustrations, the crazy events, and the lovable characters, this series really does have it all! For those of you unfamiliar with the series, basically the main character (a mouse, a cat, a pig, a dog, or a moose) is given something or taken somewhere and the rest of the story is a laughable chain of events that continue until the character is reminded of what he got in the first place and the reader is left to infer that all the events will continue happening over and over again. These books are EXCELLENT ones to use for both fluency and comprehension!

Fluency

These books are great for fluency practice, because the stories are motivating, so kids will want to read them again and again. Apart from that, each page has a limited amount of text, so it's easy for a parent and child to read every other page until the child feels confident enough to read the entire book himself. Additionally, the stories have many vital sight words in them along with words that commonly repeat within the story itself. So, by doing repeated readings, not only will they work on their first 100-200 sight words, but also, they will pick up novel words that repeat throughout the story.

Comprehension

As a reading specialist, I used many of these books within my Literacy Lab classes to help students work on a variety of comprehension strategies. My favorites to work on with these books included retell, making predictions, connections (text-to-self and text-to-text), inferences (specifically to infer character emotions), questioning, and cause and effect relationships. You can do all of these with these strategies within these stories, because the text is so brief. This means that it's up to the readers to use these strategies to expand the stories for themselves!

How you can use them

*Practice fluency skills by reading the series repeatedly and working on sight words within the story
*Practice comprehension skills such as retell, predictions, connections, inferences, questioning, and finding cause and effect relationships

5. Disney/High interest books

Appropriate for: ALL ages (it just depends on the difficulty of the books)

Why I like them

Sometimes as a parent, you really have to forgo the super-duper instructional books and just go with what your kid likes best! This is REALLY important for us to do, because even though we want to make sure we add in quality books to our children's reading, we have to also make sure our kids are enjoying what they're reading. The early years are so crucial for little ones to develop a love for reading, and what better way to do that than picking books for them that involve their deepest interest or their favorite characters! For Charlotte, she's REALLY into Finding Nemo, Mickey, and the Disney Princesses. This doesn't mean I have to get junky books with these characters, on the contrary, I made sure to buy a variety of different types of books that starred her favorite characters and also included some leveling. For example, I got her the Mickey Mouse beginning readers series, and Little Mermaid Reader (to work on fluency), a Palace Pets Search and Find book (for vocabulary development), a Finding Nemo song book (for fluency and phonemic awareness), and a Finding Nemo story book (mostly for fun!). It's important to remember that every book you get for your child does have some level of choice to it, and sometimes, it's absolutely fine for you to let them read books that aren't award winners, because they're actively developing their love of reading!

How you can use them

*Let you child pick a book with their favorite topic or characters and read it with them.

*Reread to work on fluency and talk about the book with your child to work on comprehension.

These 5 ideas should give you a great start for getting some really great high quality books for your little one to help them avoid the summer slide! Remember, as always, keep it fun! You want your little ones to not only have some extra quality reading practice, but also, and most importantly, some positive memories of reading with you which is what will really grow their own personal love of reading!

Until next time...

Yours in Literacy,

The Reading Specialista

3 Quick Tips to Get Your Kids School Reading Ready After Summer

Hey Readers,

Well it's getting to that time again, back to school! Although some of you may have already started (like me), others still have 2-3 weeks before you go back (I'm talking about you Michigan!). No matter if you've started yet or not, this is the perfect time to pump up your child's reading readiness for those early weeks of school to propel them into valuable literacy learning throughout the entire year! Whether your summer had more movies and Mickey than books and writing, or if you had your kids on a tight book reading system this summer, these three tips will help your child, not to mention impress your child's teacher!

1. Sight Word Practice

When working on fluency (how quickly, correctly, and with expression your child reads), one of the easier ways to improve this skill is to expand your child's sight word vocabulary. Sight words are basically words that children can read "at first sight." They don't have to take up precious time decoding them, and their energy can be freed up to figure out harder words. A great place to find sight words, and a widely used tool by teachers, are the Fry Words. For the individual list of words, which are arranged by grade level, you can click on the following link Fry Words. You can use these words to:

•  make flash cards to use in the car, before bed, after breakfast, any time!
• play sight word smash (lay 5-10 cards on the ground and ask your child to stomp on or slap one that you call out)
• write them on the mirror (in dry erase marker) for your child to practice when brushing their teeth

As an added help, if you're more into cutting than writing, you can follow this link to print the words and cut them out Printable Flash Cards. Remember, when you're practicing with your child, you're easing them into school again, so keep it fun, start small (10 cards at once), and then add as they learn more! Can you imagine the look on their faces when they have a whole stack of cards that they know!?

2. Comprehension Practice

A way to help your child get their comprehension (how they understand the text) muscles working is to get a little bit more involved in your reading time together. As you're reading a book together (either picture book or chapter book), you can stop every once in a while to ask students comprehension questions. These types of questions can include:

Questions about Summarizing

• What happened on this page?
• Can you tell me where we were in the story before we start? What was happening?
• What problem did the character have?
• What happened first in this story? Then what?
• What happened at the end of the story? What about the middle?

Predictions

• What do you think will happen next?
• What do you think will happen at the end of the story?
• Wow! Look at that picture on the cover! What do you think this story is about?

As an added bonus, you can actually have your child ask questions about the story to quiz you! See if they can "stump you!" Various studies have shown that when our little readers are in charge of asking questions, they actually understand the story better!

3. Text Structure and Concepts of Print

This section not only helps your child to amp up their literacy success and their ability to keep up with classroom book discussions, but if kids know these terms and use them correctly right off the bat, this really gets a "wow" factor from the teacher (I would know ;-) )! During your reading time with your child, you can easily work on these areas with them! Depending on the age of your child, they may have already mastered these areas, but keep in mind, summer is long, and review is essential! Check on the lists below to see how you can enrich your book discussions with your child by mentioning these concepts.

Text Structure (How a story/text is organized and the parts of a story/text)

• Characters (People/animals that are involved in a story)
• Main Character or Protagonist (The person/animal who most of the action happens to)
• Setting (Where/when the story takes place)
• Beginning, Middle, and End or Plot
• Problem and Solution of the story (What goes wrong and how it's fixed)
• Climax (the moment the problem is solved in the story)

Concepts of Print (Skills dealing with the understanding of the physical aspects of a book and basic structure of text in a book)

• The location of the front and back of the book
• The location of the beginning, middle, and end of a story
• The location of the author, title, and illustrator (BIG wow points when kids can use the word "illustrator")
• Understanding what a period, comma, question mark, and exclamation mark are for
• Concept of word (a child can define where a single word is in print)
• Concept of letter (a child can define a single letter within a word)
• Being able to name/point to the first and last letters in a word
• The direction we read text (left to right and then top to bottom)

When practicing these areas with your children always remember to keep it fun and interactive! We want to get them warmed up for school not burn them out before the first bell after all! The best part about these activities, is they can actually be used all year long to help your child become an even better reader! By working with your child at home while her teacher is working with her at school, you're creating a partnership with your school that will truly lead your child to amazing reading success!

Thanks for stopping by and reading, and until next time! :)

Yours in Literacy,

The Reading Specialista

10 Activities to Cook up Literacy Fun While You're in the Kitchen

Let's face it, cooking is an ever-present part of our day, so why not make it a fun literacy learning environment for our little ones? I, like you, know how difficult it can be to entertain a tiny one while cooking. It can also seem like you could never have all the necessary "fancy" literacy tools to make meaningful activities. In reality, you CAN find fun, affordable, tools right in your kitchen, to use to make literacy games for your kids!

So I made a list of 10 literacy activities you can do with your little ones that take less than 5 minutes to prep for, and some take no prep at all! Everything you need, you can find right in your kitchen! All of these activities are great for building letter recognition, and some can be extended to higher levels by changing the questions you ask.

**Please note, all activities should be done under the watchful eye of a parent or guardian to ensure safety and maximum learning!**

1. Salt Letters

Suggested Ages: 2-6 years

Materials Needed: 

1. small baking pan (with sides for easy clean up), 
2. 1 cup salt

Steps
This activity works on a child's letter recognition and encoding skills. Simply pour the salt into the pan (as pictured) and tell your child different letters to make in the salt. They can also make piles in the salt to build letters instead of just making them from the depressions in the salt. You can also ask questions like "What letter makes a 'buh' sound? Can you write it in the salt?" As an extra bonus, this gives them sensory enrichment too!

Bitty Learners: If your child isn't yet ready to make their own letters, you can trace one on a piece of paper, and put it down before you put the salt in the pan, this way, the child can trace the letter in the sand while revealing your drawing of the letter. Have them practice multiple times too!

Amp it Up: This is also a fun activity for kids to do with sight words! If your child is at the point of using sight words, they can write sight words in the salt instead of just letters!

2. Dry Spaghetti Letter Building

Suggested Ages: 2-6 years

Materials Needed:

1.  brownie pan (or a baking pan with sides), 
2. small amount (1/5 pack) of angel hair or uncooked spaghetti pasta

Steps

This activity is another great way for children to build their letter recognition skills! Place the cookie sheet on a surface where your learner is comfortable working (the table, a chair, or the floor) and place the spaghetti inside the pan (so it doesn't scatter everywhere). Ask your child to make different letters with the noodles, and make sure to show them how they can break the noodles to make different sized lines (as seen in the picture). This activity can be a bit challenging for your little learner, because it's helping her to recognize letters in different forms.

You can even get her started by making letters of your own, and have her guess what letters you made!

Bitty Learners: If your learner is not ready to make letters themselves, you can again write your own letter on a piece of paper, have her make it with the noodles, and then have her name the letter! By building letters in this way she is engaging many different sensory processes to help her learn the letter shapes!

Amp it Up: Have your learner combine letters to make short words, sight words, her name, etc. Don't be afraid to use extra noodles ;-). 

3. Cooked Spaghetti Letters

Suggested Ages: 2-6 years

Materials Needed:

1.  brownie pan (or a baking pan with sides),
2.  small amount (1/5 pack) of angel hair or cooked spaghetti pasta

Steps

Although it may seem repetitious, it's important to give our little learners various experiences with building letters that constantly engage their senses and give them different kinesthetic experiences. This helps them to not only retain information and recognize letter forms, but hey, it's boring to do the exact same stuff all the time! For this activity, simply cook up some spaghetti noodles, rinse them in cold water (to cool them and so they don't stick together). Then, place them on the cookie sheet on a surface comfortable for your learner. Next, ask your learner to make different letters with the cooked noodles (as pictured). 

I assure you, you will soon here giggles of delight as your little learner manipulates the noodles to make his letters! Show him how you can fold noodles or break them to make them shorter. Also, show them how easy it is to make curves with the cooked noodles, by making an uppercase "B" for example! 

Bitty Learners: Again, if your little learner needs a guide for his letter shapes, make sure to give it to him to place his noodles on, or show them the letter they are making by giving them a magnet or a drawing of the letter! We don't want the activity to turn into a drill, so by providing helpful and necessary support even your itty bitties can learn in a meaningful way about letter formation while still having fun!

Amp it Up: Just like before, you can have your learner make words, or his name. Keep in mind too, that your learner always benefits from practicing lowercase letters as well as uppercase letters! 

4. Cookie Sheet Magnets

Suggested Ages: 2-6 years

Materials Needed: 

1. 1 cookie sheet,
2.  alphabet magnets

Steps

This activity is actually really great, because it can take place anywhere you can take a cookie sheet! You can even explore further activities about cookie sheets on Pinterest as Early Childhood teachers have since adapted this instrument by storm! For our purposes, cooking up literacy in the kitchen, all you have to do is take one clean cookie sheet and multiple letter magnets, which will stick to the metallic cookie sheet (as pictured). You can mix up the letters and ask your little learner to find a certain letter by name "Find the A." You can ask her to find letters by sound as well "Which letter makes the Mmmmmm sound?" This is another activity that will help with your child's letter recognition.

Bitty Learners: If your learner is still in the early stages of learning letter recognition, you can write down a letter on a piece of paper or a dry erase board, and ask your child to find the matching letter magnet. Additionally, you could draw their attention to print by bringing out one of their favorite picture books and pointing out a letter for her to find. For example "Look! Clifford starts with a 'C' can you see the 'C'? Now find the magnet 'C!'" 

Amp it Up: To increase the challenge, have your learner spell her name, sight words, or help her to spell word families. Whenever she spells a word, have her say the word, sound it out, and spell the word back to you by pointing at the letters. For example "My name is Piper  Puh-I-Puh-Er. Piper is spelled P-I-P-E-R." This helps to cement her phonics understanding and her understanding of the alphabetic principle. 

5. Muffin tin letters

Suggested Ages: 2-6 years

Materials Needed: 

1. 1 muffin tin,
2.  1 piece of paper to rip up and put in each muffin cup,
3.  1 pen/marker to label letters, 
4. game markers for the game (can use Cheerios, Goldfish, anything small)

Steps

First, you'll want to take a sheet of paper, and divide it into 12 different pieces. Rip each piece apart and write a different letter on each piece. Then, place the letters in the muffin depressions (as pictured). Now, give your learner little game markers (such as Cheerios) and ask your learner to put a game piece on the letter spots. For example, "Okay, find the 'H' and cover it with your Cheerio!" Make sure to give plenty of praise when your learner gets it right and support such as reminders of what a letter looks like if he is getting frustrated. Also, don't forget to ask him for a letter that you didn't choose! He will really start to giggle when Mommy or Daddy asked him to find something that wasn't there! This is a great activity because it not only helps with letter recognition, but also with listening comprehension and even fine motor skills!

Bitty Learners: As your learners are just starting to learn their letters, you could use your alphabet magnets or drawings of the letters to help him find the letters in the tin. This gives him some necessary support as he is looking for the letters. "Look at this magnet, it's the letter T. Can you find the T in your tin and put a Cheerio on it?"

Amp it Up: For our older learners, see if they can use their Cheerio markers to spell a word within the tin (to do this, you'll have to make sure you give them some vowels!). Make sure to have them spell their word out loud to you as well. You can also make the directions more complicated "Put 2 Cheerios on the M, 1 on the C, and 3 on the A." Again this is a great way to strengthen their listening comprehension.

6. Egg Carton Shake

Suggested Ages: 2-6 years

Materials Needed: 

1. 1 empty egg carton,
2.  1 marker to label letters,
3.  1 game marker (Cheerio, Goldfish, anything small)

Steps

I saw this idea at the recent International Literacy Association Conference, and I thought it was absolutely adorable, fun, and simple! It's also great for building letter recognition. All you have to do is take an empty egg carton of whichever size you wish, and label the depressions with different letters (as pictured). Then, put a small game marker, such as a Cheerio in the carton. Have your learner shake, shake, shake, and shake the carton, and then open it. When he opens it, ask him which letter his Cheerio landed on! Then, shake, laugh, open, and repeat!

Bitty Learners: For learners just learning their letters, make sure to give them extra support. This might even be an activity that you would carefully monitor with them, helping them for the first few times, but then praising them highly when they get the hang of those letters! You might even want to give them a half dozen egg carton, so they aren't overwhelmed by the letters and are able to find success more quickly!

Amp it Up: To make it more difficult, for your learner, write some words in with the letter mix. You can also give her more than one game marker, so she is identifying more than one letter at a time. You can ask her if they can think of a word that starts with their letter. "You're right! That's a 'T!' Can you think of a word that starts with 'T?'" Another way to increase difficulty is to give her a larger carton, such as one for eighteen eggs.

7. Cheerio Tracing

Suggested Ages: 18 months-6 years

Materials Needed:

1.  1 paper plate, (you can use more if you want to do more letters)
2.  1 marker to draw a letter,
3.  1 cup of Cheerios

Steps

This is another great activity to work on letter recognition and fine motor skills! Simply take a paper plate, write a larger letter on it, and give your child a pile of Cheerios. Then, have him place Cheerios on the letter to trace it (as shown). This helps children to practice their letter formation skills and letter recognition. When he's done, you can have him wipe the plate clean and remake the letter, or you can have him do another letter on another plate.

Bitty Learners: As your little learners are tracing the letter, you want to make sure to ask them which letter they are working on. Having them repeat the letter as they are tracing it will help them to remember it. You can also talk about the letter they are working on and what sound it makes.

Amp it Up: For older learners, you can give them the plate and have them make the letter without you tracing it first. You can also have them spell out words with their Cheerios or give them the sound of a letter, and have them spell the letter in Cheerios! These extension will really help to challenge your little learners!

8. I Spy an Object that Starts with...

Suggested Ages: 2-6 years

Materials Needed: 

1. 1 expert mommy/daddy, 
2. 1 or more tiny learners

Steps

Although it may seem simple, this game really helps children to build on their letter and phonics knowledge as well as their phonemic awareness (understanding of sounds in the language). You can start the game by saying "I spy with my little eye something that starts with a 'wuh' sound." Then your child would guess different objects that start with the same sound until she gets to, for example, "water." Then she gets to be the leader and pick something out. 

Bitty Learners: For our little learners, we want to make sure to model out thinking about sounds. You might say for example, "Hmmm I'm looking for a 'tuh' sound, but milk starts with a 'mmm' sound. Oh, were you looking at the 'tuh' 'tuh' 'table?'" They will also need more support when looking at objects, so you can pick some and help them hear the first sound, "Hmmm ffffffork starts with a 'ffffffff' sound." Don't be afraid to really stretch out those sounds!

Amp it Up: For our more advanced learners, you'll want to ask them for objects that start with different letters instead of sounds. "I spy with my little eye something that starts with a 'B.'" This is more challenging, because they have to remember what sound a 'B' makes and then locate an object with that sound.

9. Ketchup Bag Letters

Suggested Ages: 2-6 years

Materials Needed: 

1. 1 Ziplock bag (with a good seal!), 
2. 1 cookie sheet (to keep the bag contained),
3.  1-2 cups ketchup (depending on the size of the bag)

Steps

Although this sounds like it could be a messy activity, when done correctly, it can have minimal clean up and allow for fun sensory letter recognition activities! First, you'll want to put 1-2 cups of ketchup (or other similar condiment of similar consistency) in a Ziplock bag with a STRONG seal! Then, seal the bag, and put it on a cookie sheet. This helps to keep the activity contained! Next, ask your learner to create different letters by tracing them on the ketchup bag (as pictured). Please note, these letters will not look perfect, but this really helps to engage their senses as they create these different letters!

Bitty Learners: For our little learners, you'll want to make sure to give them extra support by showing them the letter they are drawing by either giving them a magnet or writing it on a piece of paper and showing it to them. Remember, this is all in good fun, so keep it fun, and offer praise for successful attempts!

Amp it Up: To increase difficulty, have your child write his name, words, or give him sounds or blends and have him write which letter(s) he would need to make those sounds. Again, keep it fun! 

10. Talking out the Steps

Suggested Ages: 3 months-8 years

Materials Needed:

1.  1 expert mommy/daddy,
2.  1 or more tiny learners

Steps

It may seem simple, but talking out what you are doing to your child in steps can actually greatly help their listening comprehension and their ability to understand narrative text in the future as well as enhance their vocabulary! As you are cooking or working, tell your little learner what you are going to do before you actually start. Then, as you are going through the process, talk through the steps and have your child repeat after you. For example, "Okay Charlotte, first Mommy has to get out the eggs, then crack them, put them in the bowl, and whisk them. So what's Mommy doing now? You're right! She's getting the eggs out!" By doing activities like this, you are prepping your child to be able to identify and understand the narrative story structure within her future reading!

Bitty Learners: For our youngest learners, who may not be able to talk yet, they can still benefit from listening. Make sure that you're telling them exactly what you're doing and show them the different objects you're talking about while you're doing that step. "Look these are the eggs, I'm going to crack them now! Watch! Look at them, I'm cracking the eggs." The more we talk to our little babies, the stronger their language skills will be!

Amp it Up: To increase the difficulty of this activity, you can talk out the steps at the beginning, and then see how many of the steps your child can remember to help guide you through the process. You can also see if she can remember the steps at the end. This would help her to build her memory as well as her understanding of the narrative story structure.

I hope you find these activities useful and a helpful way for you to work with your little learners in the kitchen! Remember to keep it fun! The main goal of these activities is for our tiny ones to practice their literacy skills in a fun and supportive environment! If you have other activities you've done with your learners and want to share below in the comments, feel free! I know it would be beneficial for all!

Thanks again for stopping by, and until next time!

Yours truly in Literacy,

The Reading Specialista