Learn the Alphabet with Letter Factory

Image Source

Teaching the alphabet is not as easy as singing the "ABC Song."  Some of the students I teach come to kindergarten with little or no alphabetic knowledge.  Our team tries not to see this as a setback but rather a starting point.  In years past, it may have taken a student an entire school year to master the alphabet and letter sounds. How silly is that?!

Then, a teammate shared the Letter Factory DVD with us.  It has completely changed how we teach the alphabet.  Students are now mastering the alphabet and letters sounds in weeks rather than months. 

As we all know, kinders have a short attention span especially during the beginning of the year.  But, their ability to watch a DVD can be much longer.  We use this to our advantage. Each day, we watch a short snippet of the Letter Factory DVD.  We, then, review the letters and sounds.  As we do, we teach our students the hand motions which go with the letter.  

This video shows you what it sounds like. Imagine your students singing along. 

I always have an extra copy or two of the Letter Factory DVD to share with families when a new student arrives.  Parents are always commenting how their child comes home singing the song.  And, oddly enough, students never tire of it.  

This is not the only tool we use to teach the alphabet but it is one of the most effective.  

Thanks, Abby from Inspired Apple for hosting this Alphabet Boom Link.

 

I am excited to see what other fun things I can do to make learning the alphabet engaging for my students.

Happy Teaching!

1

Alphabet Exploration

After four days of minimum days, our kinder students will be going to school full time.  The afternoons will be hard for some but I hope to make school exciting enough that they will not even realize that they are at school.  This week, I will introduce Word Work.  I am going to keep the tasks simple; with the intent of having the students explore the alphabet.  Like you, I have students with all, some or no letter recognition.  

To differentiate, a variety of tools will be available for them to use. 

Play Doh Letters: On Monday, I plan to introduce magic play doh and teach my students how to roll snakes to form letters.  They will have letter stampers available as well.

ABC Fishing: Students will go fishing for magnetic letters using these fishing poles, I purchased from Lakeshore Learning.  These will serve double duty. I am using them for math, too.

Letter Beads: Students can practice their fine motor skills while finding the letters in their name.  Letter beads are a year long word study choice in my classroom.

Alphabet Matching: Alphabet puzzles, alphabet games and pocket chart letters will be used to help students identify, sequence or match the alphabet. 

Connect 4 ABC:

I created this game to help my student with letter recognition and fluency.  I plan to play this with my class using the document camera; me versus my students.  Eventually,  I will add it into our Word Work centers.  My proficient students will be able to play the game with my monitoring. 

Here is a freebie for you to try with your students.  The alphabet is in order so that students can sing the alphabet if needed to identify the letter.

What do your literacy centers look like?  Do you have any favorites?

Happy Teaching and Learning!

5

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

We had a great week exploring the wonderful world where anything can happen....

This book provided lots of opportunities for cross curricular study. 

I enjoy this book so much and thankfully, my students did too.

Here are some of the activities we completed.

• For math, we used this book to help us count.
• One of our alphabet activities was to match upper and lower case letters. 

Grab your copy here.

• We also played this Chicka Chicka Boom Boom alphabet game from Lakeshore Learning.  

• Look at these adorable hats!  The kids did wonderfully listening and following directions for this multi-step craft.  I loved how each one turned out different! 

Stayed tune for more Chicka Chicka Boom Boom inspired learning!

Happy Learning and Teaching!

 

4

W Is For....

This is part of Teaching the Alphabet blog party.

(I am posting this early since I will be out of town without my computer.  I wanted to make sure everything was working before leaving.)

I have the letter W.   

My inspiration was this book.

This story is appealing to younger learners but also very witty for older children.  

It also covers lots of standards; both Common Core Standards and California.

Included in this packet are ideas for math, reading and writing.  

Kindergarten students will probably do many of these activities in a whole group setting through interactive and shared reading and writing lessons. Whereas, first grade students will be able to do some independently after teaching modeling.

Click image for your copy.

I have worked hard to create this for my classroom and yours.  Please respect my work by not distributing to others, rather referring them to my blog.  If you do enjoy it, please leave a comment.  I would also love to see this in action.  Send an email.   It would make my day to see children using it!

Now it's your turn.  Below is a list of bloggers who have signed up to host a letter.

Thank you ladies!  :)

Click to see who is hosting.

Link up and add my button.  

Didn't sign up.  Don't worry.  You can join in the fun, too!  

I can't wait to see all the ideas!  

Happy Teaching and Learning!


Teaching the Alphabet

13

Teaching the Alphabet Update

Join me and other creative bloggers in our journey of teaching the alphabet.  We will explore the alphabet by sharing ideas and activities to keep the youngest learners engaged.

Happy Teaching and Learning!


PS- Teaching the Alphabet Participants please contact me via email with your contact and blog information.

7

Teaching the Alphabet -

I have been thinking about this idea for a while and want to get your opinion.  As I return back to teaching kindergarten, I want to make learning the alphabet more engaging.  We start the year introducing a letter a day.

Here's where I need your help.  I'd like these days to focus on literature, math, art, and other "fun" stuff. For example, letter D may be reading No, David! and creating a directed draw of David like this one here. The letter P could be reading all the Pigeon books and using shapes to cut and make a Pigeon of our own.

Sign - Ups Now Closed

Would you be interested?  If so, leave a comment with the letter(s) you would like to post about.  The only "rule" is that you share; a freebie.  It could be a link to a great resource (if a blogger, make sure you ask them first), or a wonderful website, or something you created yourself.

I need to hear from you soon!  Deadline to join is Friday, July 15th.  This will give others time to plan.  I hope others will want to join me!  I can't wait to hear from you!

Once we know which letters everyone wants, I will post them.  Together, we'll decide when to kick off Teaching the Alphabet.  Please blog about it!  It will be a linky party, of course!  :)


Happy Learning and Teaching!

46