And Now I Know My ABCs! Freebie too!

My kinder kids are singing songs, sorting letters, digging in rice, and in general having lots of fun trying to learn their letters and sounds!  Might sound easy and it IS easy for some to pick up this learning.  Not so much for others.  So we do all kinds of different activities in an effort to make it fun and to get those letters to stick!  Get ready for picture overload!  I am a visual person, so I thought if you see pictures rather than just descriptions it would help you to see what we do to learn our letters!

One activity my kids cannot wait for their turn to do is the Letter Expert!  It does something for their little egos to be called the expert at something.  I put the letters of their name in a bucket, plus a few extra.  Other students take their turn drawing out a letter while the expert sits up by the easel in a special chair.  The child drawing out a letter tells the "Letter Expert" the name of the letter and the "Letter Expert" gets to tell them if they are correct or help them with the right letter name if they are not.  Then the letters are sorted as to whether they are in the Letter Expert's name or not.

Another good ABC activity is the Letter Arc.  Read ABC books and students come up to find the letter on the arc.  You can do it by matching the letter or finding the capital or lower case letter match.

During small group reading time at the tables, you can use ABC Magnetic app to review letters you have taught.  Line the letters across the top.  Students pull down a letter as you call it out.  You can have the student say the name of the letter as they pull it down or the sound it makes.  Then they do the same as they put the letter back up at the top.

This is an ABC Letter freebie for you!  

I have used these letter cards to do letter races!  I place a few on the wipe off easel and call out a letter.  The student who's turn it is gets to race up to the easel and see how quickly they can find the correct letter.  Great way to get rid of the wiggles too!  Click here or on the picture to grab it!  You can also tape the cards to your door frame so students must read a letter as they enter or exit your classroom. 

Cookie sheets and rice boxes are just too much fun!  The kids love, love getting to do these center activities!  They have done a great job not scattering the rice too much too.  I have found that putting the rice box on an unused cookie sheet helps to contain the rice.  Here capitals were matched to capitals.

This one shows how you can dig out capitals to match to the lower case.  I have students of all different levels, so it is important for me to have differentiation of my activities to match where each of my students are.  If I am giving them an activity that is too hard they get frustrated.  And if it is too easy then they are not moving forward with their learning.

Highlighters and magnifying glasses are the highlights of this activity.  Kids think that is just pretty special!!  For some of my students just keeping them engaged in different ways is the key to getting them to be able to learn those letters.

Once students learn their letters pretty solidly, they are ready to build some fluency with them.  Pointers, glasses, and microphones help students stay interested and having fun!

I really like having my students work on building ABC order with their letters.  These small letter strips and recording sheets do just that.

Just click any of the pictures to see my Rice Box and Cookie Sheet ABC Letter Center Pack!  

These letter puzzles are another way to learn capitals and lower case matches.  I have 2 different kinds to differentiate for the students.  One has matching picture cues to help them match up the letters if they need that extra help.

The letter puzzles are included in this Learning My ABCs pack.  Click here to see it.

This activity-Spin, Say & Write- has also been a big help this year!  And the whole key to that is teaching students that they MUST say the letter or picture EVERY single time they spin.  It won't help if they just write it down without knowing what they are writing.  

I hope these activities help you if you were needing more ideas for teaching your little ones their ABCs!