ABC Fun

In Kindergarten, the first few weeks are all about our ABC's!!

Each day, we introduced a new letter and it went a little something like this:

We start our morning with a letter review. We introduce the letter and its sound. Then we practice stretching some words with that sound. I find it helpful to have the kids applying their sounds as they are learning them. It gives them a purpose rather than just rote memorization. After we blend a few words, we sing some songs. My kiddos LOVE Heidisongs and we sing them every day.

Here is the order we used and it even shows how you can build words AS you are learning the letters. What is the point of learning letters if you are going to use them?? My kids learn right away that we are learning letters so that we can put them together to build words!

Next we make our alphabet book page. We make a new page each day for the new letter. I have several pictures that begin with that letter's sound and I tape them all around the room. I do an example first, by "finding" a picture that makes that day's sound. We say the word, listen for the first sound, and decide if it is that letter. Then we tape it to the page and I write the word underneath. Once I do one, I send my kids on a hunt around the room for a picture of their own. Once they have found their picture, they bring it back to the carpet. They each get a turn to bring their picture up and put it on the page. Once all of our pictures are on there we "read" the page together.

We finally finished our last page/letter this week, so now we get to put it all together into a big book, that they made themselves! It will be our first class book for our library.

After we do the alphabet page, we will dot it. I use bingo dotters from Dollar Tree for kids to dot their letters. One rule is that they have to dot it in the same way they would write it. I review how to write the letter and we make sure we all know which dot we should start with.

After we dot them, we do a handwriting page and a letter hunt.

Next, we do a craft or a hat of some sort. The kids love these and it really helps with other beginning of year skills too. Skills like following directions, cutting with scissor, gluing, etc.