Discovery!: Alphabet

This week, I took the time to focus on the Alphabet. My library gives parents a survey after every storytime session and no matter which storytime program parents are attending, we have constant requests for alphabet identification and practice. While it’s very difficult to do this in baby/toddler storytime, it was a great opportunity for preschool Discovery!.

This was another activity station Discovery! and our stations were: salt writing, letter building, lowercase/uppercase eggs, do-a-dot markers, and alphabet identification game.

Salt Writing
This was a great sensory experience for the kids, but I didn’t see too much actual letter writing take place. Most of the kids were content to draw in the salt. But that let me pass on a great parent tip — shapes are the precursors to letter writing. If your child isn’t ready to start learning letters, work on shapes instead.

Letter Building
One of my upcoming Book Bundles has this kit: Letter Construction Activity Kit. I borrowed it for the program. I love that this kit teaches both uppercase and lowercase letters and that it puts some great emphasis on the kinds of lines and shapes we use to create our letters and words. This was definitely the favorite station of the day.

Lowercase/Uppercase Eggs
I’ve seen this activity on Pinterest since Pinterest started. I bought some eggs at Target immediately after Easter on clearance for $1. I wrote letters on either side of the eggs and let the kids spent the time to match them up. I made sure that no uppercase/lowercase pair were on the same color to up the difficulty for the kids.

Do-a-Dot Markers
I had paper available and purchased Do-a-Dot Markers. Caregivers were able to write a particular letter that their child was struggling with for practice. Kids used the markers to trace the letter. This is great fine motor practice and lots of the kids walked away with their whole name stamped on a piece of paper. Easily one of the more popular stations.

Alphabet Identification Game
Since the library has a foam letters set, I tossed them on the ground and used some re-usable dry erase dice to write letters on the sides. Kids rolled the dice and had to find the corresponding letter on the ground. This game worked great in theory. But the dice didn’t work. Either the kids rubbed the letters off of the dice or the dice actually broke (the dry erase part came off the foam body).

This was another program that I got a lot of great feedback from and I’m so happy that my community found it useful.

I’ve included a Pinterest friendly image if you’d like to pin this program: