All About the Alphabet

Whew!  Is the beginning of the school year exhausting or what?  What have you been up to?  Previewing the alphabet?  Really?  Me too!

My amazing fellow Kindergarten Queens and I sat down in June to go back over our curriculum with a fine-tooth comb and that included getting out alphabet preview organized.  With their permission, I'll post what we came up with.

We highlight a letter each day, beating those letters and sounds into our little peanuts' heads in any sneaky, clever, or silly way we can think of.  Here's some of my favorite ways:

The ABC Wall.  This is a total rip-off from Shari Sloan.

At our parent meeting, I explain the project to the families and give them each a baggie with a letter written on it.  Then, I give them a few days to bring something that begins with their letter.  I'm lucky that I always have a small class, so I save the vowels and trickier letters for myself.  I usually try to give them the letter of their first or last name.   Each day, we staple up the baggie that goes with the letter of the day and that person helps to point as we read what we have so far.

This year's board goes a little something like this:  "A, /a/ apple, B, /b/ bouncy ball, C /c/ car..."  This year I am planning on taking a picture of the board when it is all finished and adding it to our calendar binders so they can point to it and read it up close for the month of October.

If you would like the note I send home, please click here and enjoy using it.

I also stole this ABC Art Book from Shari Sloan.  I tweaked it to look like this, and you are more than welcome to use it.  Check out her site to get some great ideas for each letter.

Apple Prints

Easy - color it blue!

Colorful Crayon C's

Do-A-Dot

 I also used these activities for my centers:

Magnet matching on cookie sheets

I used these sparkly post-its I got as a gift from a student last year.  A little sparkle adds a lot of interest, right?

 More matching - this time capital to lowercase.

Cardboard letters from Naer, a mini cupcake tin from my Grandma, and garage sale stickers.

Environmental Print onto Alphabet Mat

 Shaker Bottle.  This year's group LOVED these!  It's a mini Gatorade bottle with glitter, salt, alphabet letter beads, and one heart bead.  It's the "mystery" and adds interest...and let's you know who's cheating! :).

Awesome floor puzzle from Melissa and Doug

We've got one more week before the alphabet is officially previewed.  Next we're planning on doing two letters each week and getting Daily 5 started.  Kindergarten is truly under way!

Happy First Days,

Amanda