Alphabet and Writing Fun

* Please mark activities done, and kids involved.

Alphabet Book – Take a few magazines and cut out pictures to paste on the appropriate pages.

Make your Own Story – Get pen and paper and have the children dictate you a story, in groups or individually. Read back what you've written often.

Alphabet Coloring – Have children color the alphabet coloring pages. Talk about the drawings and what letter they start with. Kids can color the letters for their own name.

Rhymes and Alliteration – Play making silly rhymes (cat hat) or alliteration (happy hat). Read Ook the Book, Accidental Zucchini and books of the sort. Write the words on a blackboard so they can hear the similarity in sound and see the similarity in writing at the same time.

Play-dough Letters – Roll play-dough snakes and shape them into letters and words.

Alphabet Matching – Give each child a letter card, draw a letter on a blackboard or large sheet of paper, and ask the child with the matching letter to perform some action (dance, jump, stand up, etc).

"I spy•" - •something that starts with the letter "C". Look around KH, the yard or on a walk and spy objects and the letter it starts with. Give kids stickers with the initial letter of the object identified.

Writing on Shaving Cream – Put shaving cream in a flat tray, draw letters using fingers, a stick, a car, etc. You can add food coloring to make it more fun.

Alphabet Shopping – Go around KH with a basket/paper bag, looking for things that start with one particular letter. It may be better if each kid is looking for a different letter to avoid conflicts.

Alphabet Rubbings – Tape letter cutouts and foam letters onto the craft table and cover them with a large piece of print paper. Have children do rubbings with crayons

Left-to-Right – Do the left-to-right workbook pages. Ask them to trace the path with their finger first before trying it with a crayon or marker.

Alphabet Twister – Play twister on the Alphabet Mat. If you have too many children, just do "jump on X" to a nearby letter, instead of the classic "left foot/right hand/etc". If children need clues, give them examples of what starts with that letter.

Alphabet Soup – On construction paper draw a bowl and let children glue dry alphabet soup onto it.

Fishing for letters – Attach paper clips on cutout cardboard letters and put them on a large container. Give each child a "fishing rod" and let them fish for letters.

Creative Alphabet Drawings – Turn a letter into something that starts with that letter, for example, an A into an Airplane, a B into a bunny or a butterfly, a C into a cookie. First draw the letter with thick black marker and then do the rest with pencil. Let the children color them.

Sort Animals on Alphabet Mat – Take the animals bin (the food bin would work too) and sort them one by one on their corresponding letter (the Cow on the "C", the Panda on the "P", etc.)

Writing on Sand – Put some sand in a flat tray, draw letters using a stick or a finger.

Write a letter – Get pen and paper and have each child dictate you a letter. There are envelopes and you can use stickers for fake stamps or real stamps if you really want to send it (for example, a letter to mommy would be nice ;)). If just pretend, put it in the pretend mailbox and lift the little arm thing.

Label KH – Go around KH identifying objects and their first letter, tape cutout cardboard letters to objects (eg. a "D" on the door).