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 must have items for learning your ABCs.
8 Learning Your ABCs Resources
#1 Magnetic Letters
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
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. Check out the alphabet cookies.
#4 Letter Construction Kit
My kids have always loved to build so this letter construction kit seemed 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
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 set and 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
We useplay 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 cutters to 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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Meg says
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.