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Ready for FUN and ENGAGING ways to learn letter names and letter sounds?
I am so excited to share all of these differentiated activities with you… including FREEBIES from every one of these resources.
Let’s get started!
In preschool, pre-k and kindergarten, we are teaching students letter names and sounds.
Most people think there are 26 letters to learn, which while this is true, teachers know that children have to actually learn 52 letters considering capital and lowercase versions. That is a lot for five year olds… plus they need to know letter sounds too!
Have you heard of Dr. Jean? I am a huge believer of learning through singing with movement!
Along with the singing and signing, we do so many hands on activities.
Why? Because this combination WORKS!
Here are some of my favorites.
Play these every single day for your students!
This is one of my favorite songs to sing with my children.
Get them UP and MOVING. This video is just the song, but the video below shows what I do.
We get up and use movements with each letter.
When you add movements, it truly makes these letters and sounds STICK in their little brains.
These adorable teachers show you how to implement this song with hand movements and sounds
You can use any movements you prefer, I just suggest keeping them consistent.
This is exactly what I do… I just haven’t recorded myself!
HANDS ON ACTIVITIES
While flashcards have their place, what really helps students are hands on games and activities keep children engaged and excited. This is how they will quickly become fluent with letter names and sounds.
If you’ve read through my blog, you’ll know that I prefer to start the school year with activities where students are not writing letters.
Teaching correct directionality is incredibly important, so we start with activities that don’t require handwriting.
Match and cover is the perfect activity to start with in pre-k and kindergarten. No writing or pencils required!
Plus, students love using these little bears. They look at the key and match the correct colored bear to each letter.
Even better, these come with differentiated versions!
To provide scaffolding, you can use the mats that have colored coded letters to match the bears and the key.
For more advanced students, the letters are all black.
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Students absolutely love to complete these mazes!
Each letter stands for a different community helper, and they all come in both color and black and white.
For the color version, I laminate them and use these colored chips.
I prefer these chips because they fit perfectly on the mazes and they can still see the letters through them (I can also quickly check answers for understanding.)
On the black and white version, students can color their way through the maze.
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How adorable are these letter of the day anchor chart crafts?
They are simple enough for the beginning of the school year and require zero prep for you!
Students color the pictures and then cut along the dotted lines. Give them a piece of colored construction paper and that is it!
These make adorable bulletin board displays, or send them home each day with students.
The crafts coordinate perfectly with the anchor charts I display shown below.
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Display these posters in your room, create alphabet packets for your students… the possibilities are endless!
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This is a great follow up activity to the anchor chart crafts.
Students cut out the pictures and glue them on the dots.
Both capital and lowercase versions are included, as well as black and white if you want to laminate and use as a center.
Differentiated versions are also included.
For the easier version, six pictures are provided that all correlate with the letter sound. Simply cut and glue!
The more difficult version requires students to figure out which six pictures belong, and two picture do not belong.
My kiddos absolutely love using bingo daubers! They also work great with these colored stickers.
You can also laminate these activity pages and use in a center with these colored chips.
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These alphabet bracelets are the cutest! I love how students can wear them home to show parents what letter we are learning.
The bracelets say, “Ask me about the letter___”
Two print per page, and all you have to do is print and cut apart to give to students.
Once you do the first one with them, they know exactly what to do and this requires little direction from you.
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Students absolutely love playing alphabet bingo!
I love that these have real life pictures, and they come in both a print version and in Google Slides!
They will ask you to play over and over again!
These alphabet worksheets are simple yet very effective.
I am a huge advocate for making sure students write their letters with correct directionality.
I provide scaffolding for students to ensure they know exactly where to start each letter when writing.
I always say, “We start at the star!” They trace the letter (starting at the star) and then write on their own. You can also have students do only the tracing version.
These simple worksheets address letter names, sounds, recognition, handwriting and reading within context.
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These mini books are absolutely adorable and work on so many skills!
They come in both color and black and white for every letter of the alphabet.
Each book has ten pages, but you can pick and choose which pages to use as well.
The first four pages have pictures of things that start with the targeted letter. Students practice reading left to right and touch each word as they read it. On the black and white version they can color the pictures, and for the color version, you can laminate them and use in your classroom library!
Then students trace the letters, write on their own (with star scaffolding so they know where to start each letter) find the letter, draw a picture/write a word and finally on the last page they cut and paste.
These are so cute, keep students busy and engaged and we are working on so many skills!
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These step by step drawing activities work on so many skills! Students follow the sequence of steps to draw a picture for each letter of the alphabet. They also work on handwriting, correct directionality, tracing, and writing a complete sentence.
I included five differentiated versions of each letter for you to choose from!
The photos below show all five versions.
This makes it so easy to reach every student on their level.
Use the pages individually or create drawing notebooks for students. I love making these at the beginning of the year.
When we learn each letter, they open to that page and can right to work with no direction from me. They know the expectations!
I love to turn on soft music or an audio story, and students are quiet, calm and working hard to add to their drawing notebook.
This is the perfect activity to use the afternoon when everyone needs “quiet time.”
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Tips for success:
In the beginning, I remind students that their drawing does not have to be perfect.
You’ll always have those couple of students who get upset if their picture isn’t exactly like the one shown. I tell them it won’t be perfect and that is a good thing! Everyone’s picture will end up looking slightly different.
Encourage students to have their picture take up the space! Many students will draw very tiny pictures, but remind students they have the entire area to draw!
This is up to you, but you can also have students add a background.
Model the first 2-3 letters for students. Talk outloud as you’re drawing and thinking. This will set students up for success for all the other letters!
You can show the answer keys to students - some students like to color it exactly the same.
If you love all of these activities, they are all included in this money saving COMPLETE ALPHABET BUNDLE!