If you teach preschool, Pre-K or Kindergarten then you already know the importance of teaching the letters of the alphabet. Our kids are learning to recognize the shape that represents each letter, name the shape, write the shape and connect the sound that each shape represents. Phew! That’s a lot of brain activity that goes into just learning one letter. Repetition is key to helping our students master the letters of the alphabet. Here’s some amazing Pre-K, Kindergarten, and even preschool alphabet activities that your students will love!
1. Letter Anchor Charts
Creating a letter anchor chart is a great way to introduce a new letter to your kids. These interactive class activities are a great way to focus on a variety of alphabet skills. Starting with just the letter, the students can work on identifying the shape of the letter and naming the letter. You can even have students come up to the anchor chart and practice the correct letter formation by tracing their finger on the letter. As a student finger writes on the anchor chart, the other students can practice by finger writing on the floor or the palm of their hand.
Once students have learned to identify and name the letter, the next step is learning the sound that the letter makes. That’s when these anchor charts start to come to life! The kids LOVE turning each letter into a picture that represents the letter’s sound. Not only is this fun, but the brain connection with the image and the letter really helps them remember the letters shape, name and sound. The final step is adding other words that have the same beginning sound.
These interactive anchor charts get your students involved in the learning process. Depending on the age or grade level of your students and/or the skill you are working on you can create these charts all at once or each step on a different day. You can find out more about how I use these anchor charts in this blog post.
2. Wearable Letters
Alphabet Hats
If there’s one thing I learned as a kindergarten teacher, it’s that kids love wearing special hats that they have made. These Alphabet Hats are no exception. What is great about an activity like this is that not only does the learning and review happen in the classroom, but they take it out of school with them too. Parents, friends, random people in the grocery store, will all ask about the hat as students wear them. This gives the kids a great chance to share about the letter.
These alphabet hats are a great way to review letter identification, letter formation and letter sounds. I love using these hats as a whole class activity to review what we have learned.
The back of each hat has an uppercase and lowercase letter. The front of each hat has a picture that represents the sound for the letter. As students are working on their hats it’s a great time to ask questions like:
- What other pictures could you put on this hat?
- When we write the letter A, where do we start?
Alphabet Watches
Another fun wearable alphabet activity that students love is Alphabet Watches.
My favorite way to use these watches is to give them to the students on the day we learn the new letter. In my class, we wear the watches throughout the day and at random times throughout the day I’ll hold up my wrist and point to the watch as I say, “What’s this?” The class will answer with the letter name. If we have learned the sound I will follow-up with, “What sound does it make?” and the students will respond with the sound. This takes 30 seconds or less and is a great way to provide repetitions that are necessary to help students learn. The students love the anticipation of when I might ask the question again.
3. Alphabet Worksheets
Part of learning the letters of the alphabet is learning to write them and for that you need paper and pencil {or crayons}! But learning the write letters doesn’t have to be lines and lines of letter practice. Instead you can incorporate letter writing with the other letter skills.
There are many different letter activities in this worksheets bundle. Each page works on the letter but also incorporates a level of fine motor skills through a variety of hands-on activities. Students will work on letter identification, letter writing, beginning sounds and vocabulary as they work on these alphabet practice pages. Just look at the fun activities your students will use to learn their letters.
4. Digital Alphabet Activities
These days, kids of all ages love using devices. Why not engage them in learning and reviewing the letters of the alphabet with these digital alphabet activities.
Each of these activities focuses on letter formation and letter identification. These activities are preloaded into Google and SeeSaw which makes it super easy to share with your students.
Students can also work on beginning sounds with these fun and interactive Boom Cards. Using a free Boom Learning account you share these alphabet sounds activities with your students. Students will listen to the instructions which also provides the letter name and sound. Then students will choose the picture that starts with the same sound.
Want to see what Boom cards are like? Try out a free preview of the Letter D Boom Cards. Boom Cards are fun for students and easy for teachers to share and assign. That’s a win-win!
Alphabet Posters
Alphabet posters are a great resource to have in your classroom. Not only do they provide students with a visual tool that they can access at any time, they are also a reminder of all the learning.
On each poster students can find the letter, the letter formation steps, and a picture that represents the sound of the letter.
Typically put on the wall, these versatile alphabet posters can be used for so much more.
Here’s one of my favorite #TeacherHacks for you. Print these alphabet posters in different sizes to make activity cards or flashcards. When you open the pdf file in Adobe Reader go to File and Print. Before hitting Print, look for the printer settings that allow you to print multiple pages of the file on one page. Printing 2 to a page makes a great half page card, while printing 4 (or more) to a page makes a great flashcard.
Once you’ve printed to the size you want, you can slide these cards into a page protector and allow students to practice writing with a dry erase marker, build the letters with play dough or even use tweezers to build the letter with small manipulatives. Any or ALL of these make great center activities to help reinforce the letters.
Try Letter A for Free!
I have bundled together a bunch of Letter A activities for you to try with your students. This bundle allows you to introduce and teach the Letter A in a variety of fun and interactive ways that I know your students will love. Use one or fill your lesson plans with all of them! Just click on the image below to grab your Letter A Freebie!
