Alphabet Activities
and Preschool Curriculum Ideas
Make Learning Fun!
With our free alphabet activities and
preschool curriculum ideas, you can make teaching your preschooler or kindergartener loads of fun.
Little kids are like sponges - always soaking things up.
This can be good and it can be bad.
The key is to fill your child's life with the good things: a happy family; a good example of a Godly marriage; a good clean and moral environment; good character training; and laying the foundation about the Lord Jesus Christ.
As long as you keep God at the center of your family and homeschool - you'll beon the right track and your little bitties will be soaking up the good stuff.
Besides the things mentioned above, your child is also soaking up a lot of "on-the-job-learning". Meaning he is learning all the time.
Take advantage of this with these activities and include them in your daily life.
All it takes is reading these directions one time and reminding yourself to do it and before you know it, you'll begin to see all kinds of activities to informally teach your little guys.
Here are some of my favorites:
Alphabet Activities
ABC WALK
Alphabet activities like this one are fun! All you need is a nice day or even a semi-nice day for this.
- Tell your child that you are going to take a walk. On this walk, they will see how many things they can spot that start with the letters of the alphabet.
- Begin with the letter "a" and work through the alphabet
Helpful Hints
If you are just beginning to use alphabet activities to teach your child the letters of the alphabet, take along the cards you are learning along with you. As you find an object that starts with the letter sound "a", show the card to your child (or let him carry it for a feeling of importance - you can print off more).
As you see the object, point it out and say, "a, a, ant", "buh, buh, bee". - Before you do this the first time, you may want to take a quick walk by yourself and try to spot out objects that go with each letter of the alphabet or sit down and make a list of things you think you will see on your walk.
- Some things may be hard to find to match their letter. For example, I have yet to see a zebra on one of our walks :). An idea to help here is to take some small toys and "plant" them around your yard so your child can find them.
- If you have a neat and orderly child who is particular (think future engineer) you may want to type up a checklist for your child and let them put a big, fat X by each letter as you go. Kids get a kick out of this.
Instructions
- Cut the poster board in half
- On the title page write something that your child enjoys that will be the "subject" of his or her masterpiece book. For example, "I Like to Play Outside" "I Like to Play Trucks", "I Like to Play Dolls."
- Give your child one of the pieces of poster and ask her to draw a picture that starts with the letter "a". If your child's book is about dolls, find something that has to do with dolls that starts with the letter "a".
Again, you may want to think this out before you get your child involved and give her "hints" when she is drawing the picture. Your daughter may have a doll she has named "Amy" or draw the doll and circle her "arm" in the picture.
- After your child has drawn the picture, let him dictate a sentence that tells about the picture. Draw a big "B" on the page and write what they dictate - "I love to play with my blue truck."
- Once you have made a page, punch holes in the binder area and use the book rings to make it into a book.
Alphabet activities like "Big Books" help your child prepare for language arts. By dictating sentences to you, she is seeing that spoken words can be turned into sentences with the letter sounds she is learning. This is great preparation.
LETTER DICE
This is a fun and simple game that takes one-time preparation.
Materials
Dice - These dice either need to have the lower case alphabet on them or you can buy blank dice at school supply stores and write in the lower case letter on them. If you write the letters on the dice yourself, be sure and use a permanent marker so the letters don't rub off or buy tiny alphabet stickers to stick on.
Also be sure you use lower case letters written so your child can read them.
Objects - Find one object that starts with each letter sound of the alphabet. "a" - top ape, "b" - ball etc.
Keep these objects in a box or bag, whichever is easiest and convenient for you.
- Each dice has six sides so have a letter on each side of the dice that the child is learning. If your child has only learned to the letter "c" - fine. Write two a's, two b's, and two c's on the dice.
- Set out the objects that start with the letters that the child is learning
- Let the child roll the dice.
- The child chooses the object that starts with the letter that shows up on the dice.
Help Hints
At first, just set out one object per sound so your child doesn't get overwhelmed. After he has learned the You might want to collect more than one object for each letter sound so your child doesn't get bored.
After he has learned the letter sounds pretty well, let him have several objects that start with each sound to choose from.
BOUNCY BALL
Children love alphabet activities like this one because they involve being active and running around.
Materials
Ball that bounces
Instructions
- Stand opposite of your child.
- Say one of the letters your child is learning and bounce the ball to him.
- When he catches the ball, he says something that starts with the letter you said.
- Play continues until you have covered all the letters he is learning.
Helpful Hints
Until your child has played the alphabet activities quite a bit, you may want to reverse the order. Let him say a letter and sound and you name the object.
ALPHABET BOWLING
Here is another one of the fun alphabet activities that kids love because of the action!
Materials
Clean, empty 2-liter plastic bottles
Construction paper
Markers
Ball
Instructions
- Print the letters that your child is learning on a piece of construction paper and tape it to a bottle - one letter per bottle.
- Set the bottles up like a bowling alley.
- Let your child "bowl" down the bottles.
- Your child names something that starts with the sound of the letter she bowled down.
Helpful Hints
How close you let your child bowl is up to you.
When your child bowls down several letters, let them choose which letter she wants to say or let her name objects to go with every bottle she knocks down.
Have your child say just the sound the letter makes if he has just started learning the sounds.
I sincerely hope you enjoy these alphabet activities. Be sure to check our other preschool curriculum ideas for more ideas.
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