>>> Download our guide to ABCs and 123s here 

Here’s how to make your own bingo game to help your child practise their letters.

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.

 My guide to ABCs and 123s

Do you have a young child who is learning their ABCs and 123s, and do you want to make their learning fun? Our ABCs and 123s resource of mulitsensory, play-based letter and math activities is just what you need. See more here.

Alphabet games

L 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?