|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
 I’m joining in the global A-Z blog party today with an alphabet dedicated to learning how to write. Here are twenty-six fun, creative, tried-and-tested ideas that you can use with your children to help them enjoy their first steps in learning how to write. There are ideas here for sensory alphabets, making spellings fun, encouraging creative storytelling and bringing writing into your everyday imaginary play. A-Z of learning how to write Read more »
1. Make several grids on paper or card. You can draw them by hand or print them from the computer. You need at least one grid per player but if you make more you’ll be able to swap cards and play the game several times. You can make the grid any size you like but 6 squares are a good start for pre-schoolers. 2. Add a letter into each square. 3. Make a set of square cards with a letter on each, corresponding to the letters on your grids. 4. Give every player a grid and then turn the square cards face down. 5.Take it in turns to pick a square card. When you turn over a square, see if you can make the right sound for the letter. 6. If the letter you picked is on your grid you can keep it to cover up the letter on your grid. If you don’t have the letter on your grid, place it back face-down. 7. The winner is the first person to cover all the letters on their card and gets to shout ‘bingo!’. You can of course make different versions of this game to work on numbers, colours and words. happily shared with Tot Tuesday and ABCand123 and Preschool Corner Welcome back to the Play Academy community – come and add your link.
L is in love with letters this week. She has been thrilled to discover there is such a thing as a kicking k and a curly c. She is sounding out lots of words and spotting the letters in her name everywhere. I wrote a few weeks ago about the alphabet games we were playing with our fridge magnets, and these magnets are still getting lots of play time. Rather than use them in any specific ‘learning activity’ L has been using them as characters in her games. You can see here that she’s split them into colour groups, with most of her school of letters joining in some Circle Time and the blue group off for a special activity. While she’s involved in this imaginary play she’s getting a lot of practice in letter recognition, always keen on orienting them so they’re the right way up and checking ‘what letter is this called?’ on any she is unsure of. A good example of learning by absorbtion in a letter rich environment. Maybe you could add some letters into your play this week? Please join in our Play Academy and share what you’ve been playing, crafting or making this week. It’s so wonderful to see new blogs joining in – so if you haven’t linked up before, please do, you are very welcome. Do take advantage of the great ideas in the Play Academy and visit some of the other blogs who link up, and say hi. Please spread the word about the Play Academy on your own blog, facebook page or through twitter: the more the merrier! And don’t forget that it’s the Carnival of Junk Play on Friday 3rd December. And if you’re a fan of children’s crafts you’ll also love Maggy’s Kids Get Crafty link-up each Wednesday over at Red Ted Art.
Alphabet gamesL is getting more and more interested in letters and we’re using our magnetic alphabet set to play some alphabet games. There are lots of ways you can use letters of course, depending on how old your children are, but here are two easy games to use with those just starting to recognise letters.
I spy my name Put a selection of letters on the fridge door (making sure they are all the right way up) and ask your child if they can hunt out the ones which are in their name. We’ve been writing L’s name on drawings, coat pegs, cards to send to friends and so on ever since she was tiny so she’s had lots of chance to get to know what her name looks like. I sound out the letters of her name as I write them and she has learned the sounds, order and shape of them pretty much just by observing this. A child’s name is a great place to start working with letters: they’re pretty ego-centric so they like it being all about them! We always use a capital first letter and lowercase for all the others (so I replicate this with the fridge magnets too). Letter snap We put all the letters on the fridge and I select one and say ‘this is an ‘a” and ask L if she can make a match. Snap! She likes to take a turn choosing a letter for me to match – which lets me see how many letters she knows the sound for. Have you got a set of magnetic letters on your fridge door? How do you play with yours?
 |
11,676 families already receive our Play Planner!
     
 
 
             |
||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||
