MAKE AND READ ALPHABET BOOKS

IF THEY MAKE IT, THEY WILL WANT TO READ IT!

Home School Alphabet Book
This book will provide a hands-on activity that will encourage parents to talk to their children about school and alphabet letters. Write different letters of the alphabet on cardstock. Give each family a letter and ask them help their child draw pictures or cut out pictures of things that begin with the letter. Put their pages together to make a book for your class.

I Can Read!

Take 26 large sheets of paper (12” x 16”) and write a different letter on each page. Put pages between construction paper to make a book called “I Can Read My ABC’s.” Hole punch and bind with book rings. Invite children to bring in words from food labels, stores, catalogs, etc. that they can read. As childrenbring in their words, help them match up the first letter with the same letter in the book and glue their word on that page. 

Alphabet Art
Write large letters of the alphabet on paper. Give each child a letter and challenge them to create a picture around their letter. “What does your letter look like? Does it remind you of something? Can you use your crayons to turn it intothat object? Try to ‘camouflage’ it so no one knows what your letter is.” Put their drawings together to make a book.

*Challenge older children to turn their letter into an object that begins with the sound their letter makes.

Alphabet in My Mouth
Use the words and tune to “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” to make thisbook.

I’ve got the whole alphabet in my mouth.
I’ve got the whole alphabet in my mouth.
I’ve got the whole alphabet in my mouth
And I can read.

I’ve got A /a/ /a/ in my mouth.
I’ve got B /b/ /b/…

First, take a close up photo of each child with their mouth wide open and their tongue stickingout. Next, cut letters out of construction paper and glue to the tongue on theirpicture. Write words for each page to go with the picture, such as “I’ve got A /a//a/ in my mouth.”

AlphaBODY Book
Challenge children to make letters with their bodies. Or, divide children into small groups and ask them to make letters.

Themes
Make alphabet books that relate to different themes, seasons, holidays, or concepts you are working on. For example:

Pets Foods We Like
Insects Friends Oceans
Transportation Scary Things
Things We Love ABC’s of Spring
Our Country Sports


CLASSROOM ALPHABET
Instead of putting up the traditional alphabet cards, use one of these ideas to create a unique alphabet.

Children’s Photos
Use children’s first or last names to make an alphabet. If several children have names that begin with the same sound, then group them together. If you don’t have names for letters, then use the school helpers’ names or other common objects.

Sign Language
Cut hands out of felt and glue them to make the manual signs for letters.


Real Objects
Glue small objects that begin with letters to make alphabet cards.


Environmental Print
Use labels from food products or clothes to make an alphabet.
Hint! Give each child a letter and ask parents to send in environmental print for that letter.


Giant Letters
Cut out giant cardboard letters for the first letter in each child’s name. Let them decorate these at home with their families. They could use family photos, pictures of things that are important to them, or drawings to decorate their letters.

EASY PEASY ABC MATERIALS

These tools are easy to make and will add hands-on fun to your curriculum. Wouldn't they be perfect for a learning center?

ALPHABET CUPS
Write letters on the sides of bathroom cups. Let children explore and experiment building with the cups.

*Make a matching game where they match upper and lowercase letters.

*Challenge children to make words (or their names) with the cups.

Hint! Store in a Pringle’s can.


PLAYFUL AND CHALLENGING PLAY DOUGH
Write letters on clear plastic plates, plastic placemats, sheet protectors, or leftover laminating film with a permanent marker. Make play dough from the recipe below. Children roll play dough and place it on top to make the letter. Can they make objects that begin with that letter? 

Homemade Play Dough
2 cups flour
2 cups
2 TB cream of tartar
2 TB vegetable oil
2 cups water
Food coloring

Mix ingredients together in a pan until smooth. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until the mixture forms a ball and sticks to the spoon. Cool and knead. Store in zip baggie

* Add unsweetened Kool-aid, vanilla, cinnamon, or other spices to give it an aroma.
Hint! You can even find a gluten free play dough recipe online.


Alphabet Cookies
*Let children press magnetic letters in play dough to make alphabet cookies.

Play Dough Pictionary
Each child will need a small ball of dough to play this game. Call out a letter. Children try and make something from their dough that begins with that sound. Take turns trying to guess what friends molded.


LETTER POPS
You will need jumbo craft sticks, magnetic letters, and E6000 glue (or similar craft glue) to make letter pops. Glue the magnetic letters to the jumbo craft sticks and you’re all set to begin.


Song Props
Pass out the sticks and have children hold up their letter as you sing ABC songs.

Letter Hunt
Ask children to walk around the room and match their letter on classroom print. Can they match their letter to an object in the room that begins with the sound?

Library Pointers
Place the letter pops in a can in the classroom library. Children choose a letter and then match it up with that letter in a book.

Making Words
Let older children get together with friends and make words with their letter pops.

Match Up
Make a set of letter pops with uppercase letters and a set with lowercase letters. According to the number of children in your classroom, use the appropriate number of uppercase and lowercase letters. Distribute uppercase letters to half the class and matching lowercase letters to the other half. Children can walk around the room and match up.

LETTER LAND

All aboard for Letter Land! The few days I’ll be sharing alphabet activities on my blog because this time of year the ABC’s seem to be the starting line in most pre-k and K classrooms.

I have been at this rodeo a LONG time and I want you to know there is NO one correct way to introduce letters or teach children to read. Just take a look around you and you’ll see people of all ages who know HOW to read and they learned TO READ with a variety of different approaches, materials, and reading programs.

Many people ask me questions about how to introduce letters. Should you do capital letters first? Is there a specific order you should follow? There is NO definitive research to support one particular strategy. Children come to you with so many varied experiences and skills that one size will not fit all. There are two principles that I think are important.

First, make it authentic! Teach letters in context and connect with children’s names, units of study, nursery rhymes, and other interests. For example, a trip to the pumpkin patch would be the perfect time to talk about Pp. Talk about the letter Jj when you say Jack and Jill. If your football team is the Falcons discuss the letter Ff.

Second, make it playful and challenging. Use hands-on activities, songs, movements, and games to stimulate multiple senses. Blocks, play dough, puzzles, and magnetic letters are much more REAL than a worksheet or computer game.

Finally, remember that children take it in and take it in and take it in – and then something comes out! They don’t all learn in the same way at the same time, so you have to provide a variety of opportunities to learn. The key is to keep it fun and make them feel successful.

I've got some simple tools that will provide children with multiple experiences in learning letters. Purposeful practice for automaticity (aka repetition) is important for skill mastery so you will want to do these activities many times.

Note! Although I’ll be focusing on alphabet letters, please “harvest” these ideas and make them work for the age and interests of your students. For example, if your children are proficient with alphabet knowledge, use these ideas for sight words. For younger children adapt these activities for learning colors and shapes.


LETTER PUPPETS

Envelope Puppets
Seal an envelope and cut it in half as shown. Write the uppercase letter on one side and the lowercase letter on the other side. Sing the “Hokey Pokey” with the letter puppet.

You put your (letter) in,
You take your (letter) out,
You put your (letter) in
And you shake it all about.
You make the (letter sound)
And then you put it down.

*Listen up! Tell children when you say words starting with that sound they can hold up their puppet. When you say a word that doesn’t start with that sound they should keep the puppet in their lap.

*Have children write a letter on one side and draw an animal that begins with that sound on the reverse side.




*I Have - Who Has Alphabetical Order?
Seal 13 envelopes, cut them in half, and then write the letters of the alphabet on the envelopes. Pass out one or two envelopes to each child and have the child with A say: I have A. Who has B?
The child with B says: I have B. Who has C? And so forth.

*Let children hold up their letter as you sing different alphabet songs.

*Use these puppets to make CVC words.

Paper Plate Puppets
Staple two paper plates together 3/4 of the way around. Write a large uppercase letter on one side and a lowercase letter on the other side. Or, just write the uppercase and lowercase together on one side. Children wear these on their hands and hold them up when their letter is sung in an alphabet song.

*You can also use these to make CVC words or sight words.


http://bit.ly/drjeanLetterLand

I CAN READ! ENVIRONMENTAL PRINT

Environmental print is one way young children “read pictures” and develop visual literacy. Using environmental print at the beginning of the school year is a great way to help children make print connections, develop visual memory skills, and motivate them to read.

Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard

Ask children to save food wrappers from snacks and their lunches. Glue wrappers to sheets of paper and write this rhyme at the top of each page:


Old Mother Hubbard

Went to her cupboard

To get her poor dog a bone.

But when she got there
 T
he cupboard was bare

And so the poor dog had…(Children read food logo.)

What’s for Breakfast?

Ask children to bring in the box from their favorite cereal. Cut the front section off and on a sentence strip write: “Child’s name eats name of cereal.” Glue to the bottom of the cereal box. Put all the boxes together and make a book. Write “What’s for Breakfast?” on the front cover. Hole punch and put the boxes together with book rings.
*You can also make a book with sacks from fast food restaurants.

Clothes 

Read sayings on T-shirts, sports jerseys, shoes, and other clothing the children wear to school.




We Can Read Bulletin Board

Ask children to bring logos from food boxes, magazines, toys, clothing and household products. Make a poster or bulletin board that says: “We Can Read!” Let children glue their logos to the poster. Read over the words together.




Read at Home Book

Cut 9” x 12” sheets of construction paper in half. Let each child choose 4 or 5 different colors and staple them together to make a book. Write “I Can Read” on the front and let the children decorate with their name and picture. Send the book home with a note to the parents about helping their child recognize different logos, signs, and words on products and in the home and as they drive down the road. Encourage parents to help their child cut out words they can read from boxes, magazines, and advertisements. Ask children to bring their books back to school to “read” with classmates.

I Like

On Monday send home a sandwich bag with a note asking parents to help their child look for words she can read on food labels, toys, advertisements, and other products around their house. Children cut these out and bring them to school Friday in the sandwich bag. On Friday, encourage the children to “read” the labels that they have brought to class. Write the words “I” and “like” on index cards for each child. Model how to place the cards on the floor with a label from their bag. Point to the words as you read, “I like logo.” Ask the child to read it for you as you point to each word. Comment, “Look at you reading!!!!”




Block Engineers
Cut store logos from Sunday advertisements. Tape to wooden blocks and make your own mall in the block center.


Out the Door
Several years ago when I was in Pleasanton, TX, Nadine Barrow shared this idea. She posts words and environmental print on the inside of her door. Students have to read two of the words before exiting the classroom.

SCHOOL GLUE

Just a dot! Not a lot!

Just think if you were a little kid and you had never held a bottle of glue before. Wouldn’t it be fun to squeeze it all out? Sometimes we forget that children need directions on how to use school materials. Tell children, “We just need to use a baby dot of glue. Not a mama dot or papa dot. Just a tiny, little baby dot.” (Be dramatic with this and say “baby dot” in a high little voice.) Demonstrate how to put a dot on a sheet of paper. “What does that look like? A little bug? A cookie crumb?”

*Put food coloring in a bottle of glue and use it at a center for children to practice making “baby dots.”

If you use glue sticks, you will also need to demonstrate how to use them. “If you barely touch the page you can’t see anything. That means nothing will stick to it. Press it gently down and then look to make sure you can see something. That means your paper will stick.”

School Glue
(Tune: “This Old Man”)
School glue, school glue,
Just a little dot will do.
Put a dot and spread it around.
It will hold your paper down.
School glue, school glue,
Don’t use more than a dab or two.
When it dries up, it will disappear.
Your work will look good never fear.


Lotty Dotty
Write letters, numbers, words, etc. by making dots with a water-based marker. Put a drop of glue on top of each dot. Dry. The marker will bleed into the glue to create a textured figure. Children can trace over the dots with their finger as they say the letter, number, or word.

Hint! Let children make rubbings of lotty dotty letters and words by placing a sheet of paper on top and rubbing with the side of a crayon. Can they connect the dots and write the letter or word?

Glue Ghosts
Someone taught me how to make these years ago and I wanted to pass on the idea to you.  (Save it for October.)  Children squirt glue in the shape of a ghost on wax paper. Add googly eyes and let dry overnight. When they are dry, peel off the wax paper, punch a hole, and tie on a string for a necklace. If you didn't want to make ghosts, they could do aliens or other creatures. My kids loved these!

LEFT TO RIGHT

Training eyes to move from left to right and then reverse sweep is a key to beginning reading and writing. A simple, yet powerful way, that teachers can do this is through modeling. Make it a habit to sweep your hand from left to right under words or lines of print on charts, big books, white boards, and so forth.


Right & Left Song
(Tune: “Up on the Housetop”)
Here is my right hand way up high.
(Hold up right hand.)
Here is my left hand touch the sky.
(Hold up left hand.)
Right and left and roll out of sight.
(Roll hands around.)
Now I know my left and right.
(Hold up left and then right.)

Hint! Focus on the right hand because then what is “left” over will be their left.

Sticker
Put a sticker on each child’s right hand and then play “Simon Says” or the “Hokey Pokey.”

Bracelet
Let children make bracelets out of pipe cleaners and wear them on their right hand. Throughout the day call attention to their right hand…right ear…right leg…right foot, etc.


Lotion
Rub lotion or scented lip balm on each child’s right hand.


Flag
Trace around your right hand on construction paper and cut it out. Place it near the flag so children can visually match up their right hand and then place it over their hearts.




Poem
Hold up your hands and stick out thumbs and index fingers as you say:
Which is my left? Which is my right?
Sometimes it’s hard to tell.
But when I stick my thumbs out straight,
My left will make an “L.”

Left From Right(Anthony Corbo aka “Mr. Kindergarten” taught me this song.)
(Tune: “Mary Had a Little Lamb”)
I want to learn my left from right,
Left from right, left from right.
I want to learn my left from right,
I try with all my might.
The left hand makes the letter L,
Letter L, letter L.
The left hand makes the letter L,
Hurray, now I can tell!

Tracking Left to Right
Draw tracks on sentence strips similar to the ones shown. Children can drive cars or move animals from left to right.

Hint! Make a green dot where they are to begin and a red dot where they should end.

READY TO WRITE

Children can have fun as they practice pre-writing strokes and train their eyes to go from the top to the bottom and left to right.

Top to Bottom Song (Dawna Hunter)
(Tune: “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes”)
Top to bottom,
Left to right.
Top to bottom,
Left to right.
My mind knows that writing always goes
Top to bottom,
Left to right.


Pencil Stories
Pencil stories using story symbols can help children develop top to bottom and left-to-right orientation. They’re also an engaging way to develop small motor skills. These stories should be told multiple times so children can practice the pre-writing strokes and feel more competent. You might want to do the same story every day for a week as you invite the children to recall what will come next.

Here's an easy version I would try with the little ones to encourage them to go from left to right and make a few strokes.

Let's go for a walk. (horizontal)

The sun is shining down. (vertical)

The wind is blowing. (slant)

Here come some raindrops. (circle)

I hear thunder. (X)

Time to run home! (horizontal)

Hint! Put a green line down the left side to show them where to start and a red line down the right side to indicate where they should stop.

Write Round the Mulberry Bush
Here's another great pre-writing activity for the beginning of the school year called “Writing Round the Mulberry Bush.” I clearly remember where I got this idea. About 20 years ago I was doing a workshop in Huntsville, Texas. A young teacher said, “My mentor needs to tell you how she teaches handwriting. Her kids have the best handwriting in the school.” Well, she grabbed my attention and when I asked the older teacher her secret she smiled and said they practiced “Writing Round the Mulberry Bush” several weeks before introducing letters.

Basically, you have children make the strokes as shown on a blank piece of paper as they sing the different verses to the song “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush.” It makes sense because children need to go from top to bottom and left to right as they learn to master simple strokes.

Note! According to most experts, these are the developmental stages for writing.

1st vertical line
2nd horizontal line
3rd circle
4th cross
5th square
6th diagonal
7th X
8th triangle




Sand Tray
Let children use a sand or rice tray to practice making basic strokes.