I have several children going to Kindergarten next year, so we have really been working on things to prepare them for Kindergarten. I normally just share the crafts we do and sometimes the fun snacks we make, not usually the everyday stuff like cutting, alphabet, numbers, colors and shapes. Well this week I have been pulling kids aside and working more one on one with them to see what else we need to work on and I thought I would share some of that with you. I have had a couple people ask me for ideas on how to teach their children letter and number recognition.
Cutting is something we do quite often, I don't use worksheets usually with the kids but have them cut straws, yarn, scrap pieces of paper, playdough, etc. I did make a quick worksheet with different lines on it to practice different cutting skills.
These scissors are great for the little ones that are just learning to cut......the little yellow thing acts as a spring and pops the scissors back open after cutting. You can see some of the kids using them below (some of the kids using them know how to cut, but just wanted to use them too).
Be creative and look through your craft stuff to see what your child can use to practice cutting. My middle child loves to cut and glue with just scraps of stuff I have laying around.
We also work on letters everyday.....either writing letters in our journals or just saying the letters, making the sounds, etc. Well here are some very simple ideas you can make at home to work on letter recognition. This one is perfect for the younger ones......it is simply matching the letters, uppercase to uppercase. This is just a posterboard on the fridge with magnetic letters.
On the backside, I have the lower case letters so the older children can work on matching uppercase to lowercase.
We use these a lot.......they are just milk and pop lids with letters on the inside. I have a circle punch that I used to cut the paper the right size and then used a sharpie to write the letters. I used the milk lids for the uppercase and pop lids for lowercase (to match them up, the lowercase lids fit inside the uppercase lids). You can give to one child to match up the uppercase an lowercase or work in pairs. Sometimes I let the children just work on them together or I say the letter and have them find it and match them up.
You can also use them to spell out the children's name or spell other words as well. Lots of options with these.
We also have an alphabet monster that eats the letters. This can be used different ways as well. You can just lay out one set of letters and say the letter for them (fun to do it in a goofy or scary monster voice) to put in the monster's mouth or you can put out both sets and they are to find the uppercase and lowercase letters for the monster to chomp. They love that it's a monster and it's something fun, so they don't always feel like it is learning.
This is another option for matching letters, take a paper towel tube and cover with construction paper. Write letters on it and give children a set of alphabet stickers for them to match the letters.....again, can do uppercase to uppercase for younger ones or uppercase to lowercase for older ones.
While doing any of these, you can ask the children what sound the letter makes to emphasize letter sounds as well. You can also use numbers instead of letters.
Some children learn at different levels, so if these aren't working for your children find something that will. When drawing with chalk outside, write letters or numbers on driveway.....then give your child a spray bottle filled with water to spray the letter you shout out to them. Dig for letters in a container or rice or macaroni. When reading to my children, I constantly ask them to find different letters in the book or in the grocery store, look at the numbers or letters on the aisles......letters are everywhere.....try and make it fun and different for your children.
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