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Home » Reading Ideas » Alphabet Activities » 8 Must Have Items for Learning Your ABCs

8 Must Have Items for Learning Your ABCs

February 19, 2016 • 1 Comment

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Learning your ABCs should be fun and playful.  I’ve found that toddlers and preschoolers (really any age!) learn best through hands-on play that also includes lots of conversation with others to learn new ideas and concepts.  Over the years, I have shared several alphabet games and activities on the blog.

Today, I thought I would put in one place our favorite items that we have purchased to use in our alphabet play.  So, here are our top 10 must have items for learning your ABCs.

Must have resources for helping children learn their abcs. All ideas are hands-on and playful alphabet activities!

8 Learning Your ABCs Resources

#1  Magnetic Letters

magnetic alphabet game: letter cookies

If I could only have one manipulative in my house or classroom, it would be magnetic letters.  We have used ours on a daily basis for a few years.  We have a lowercase and an uppercase set and generally use them on our magnetic easel.

Here are 8 magnetic letter games to play with them.

#2 Puzzles

puzzles are great for learning about the alphabet

My oldest son was obsessed with his alphabet floor puzzles.  I liked that the pieces were big, included lowercase and uppercase letters, and had picture support.

#3 ABC Cookies

My cookie loving little one loves the sweet treats so this was the perfect holiday gift one year.  He has pretended to be a baker serving lots of letter fun.  Plus,the set comes with various different game options.

#4 Letter Construction Kit

My kids have always loved to build so this letter construction kitseemed liked the perfect gift.  My kids don’t always build letters with them.  Sometimes they build robots, building and roads.  But, we do use it for building letters too!

#5 Letter Stamps

learning your name: stamp your name

Stamp play can be a bit messy in our house because it usually leads to fingerprint art to full fledge handprint art. However,  I really like this setand the kids love to build their name with them.  Plus, you can even use them with play dough play (minus the stamp pad).

#6 Alphabet Books

I’m sure you guessed that we have lots of books in our house.  They are wonderful for learning about language. Montessori Letter Work is one of my favorites for learning about the alphabet.  The kids can trace each sandpaper letter and there is a bright image for each letter.  My only hesitation with the book is that book encourages you to say the sound for each letter incorrectly.  Please don’t add extra phonemes.  G is not guh.  Check out this video for the correct way to say sounds.

Here are 26 more alphabet books we like to read too.

#7 Foam or Felt Letters

We found a felt letter set at a yard sale that we used in our Load & Pull Game and Letter Harvest Activity.  The felt sets can be challenging to find.  But a foam set would work too.  Plus, you can use the foam version in the bathtub or at the water table.

#8 Play Dough

play dough makes a great alphabet resource tool

We use play dough for all sorts of creating.  The kids like to roll  play dough ropes and then shape them into letter shapes. We also just bought a set of ABC cookie cuttersto use with our play.

Try some of these play dough letter play ideas.

So, if you came to our house, these would be the literacy tools you would find. I hope that it inspires you to add one or more to your home or classroom too.

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1 Comment Filed Under: All categories, Alphabet Activities

About Jodie Rodriguez

Jodie Rodriguez is a mom of two young boys and an early childhood/elementary educator with over 20 years of experience. Jodie's passion is helping parents, teachers, librarians and anyone else interested in nurturing and reaching ALL of our youngest growing readers.

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  1. Meg says

    February 26, 2016 at 10:05 am

    These are great ideas. I had seen those cookie letters, but now I really want to get them. I also love those later construction toys. Thanks for sharing.

    Reply

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