This hands-on sensory play invites children to explore the letters of the alphabet. It can be easily extended for children who are sight word ready too! Allowing children time to freely explore the materials at first gives them time to become familiar with the items you offer them. It also gives you the opportunity to see how the children interact with the materials so you can best move forward with consideration for where each child is in their literacy development. this is the beauty of open-ended materials. You never know where the child might lead you.
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| Choose your sensory base to add to your tray. We used vase filler with these small wooden letters. |
We shared the book, "The Mixed-Up Alphabet" by Steve Metzger and invited the children to hide the letters of the alphabet around their home. They were then invited to go on a scavenger hunt for the letters and place them in ABC order. This fun activity is one other way to explore alphabet order through play with your child.
Three Helpful Tips
A strategy we shared with the children who were stuck on an unknown letter in the sequence was to sing the alphabet song to solve for the next missing letter. This is a great opportunity to do some problem-solving with the children. For those children who might be exploring this activity for the first time, giving them a visual to match the letters to is also a great strategy for these early literacy learners. One last tip! You can use a wooden puzzle board and letters to engage your child in exploring this concept easily. Simply hide the letters around the room and place the board out. Your child can hunt for the letters and place them back on the board.
Why Teach ABC Order?
This practical life skill can be found in many of our everyday life experiences, from the contact list in our phone book to finding information on a book's index page. Alphabetic order is simply a good way to categorize and organize information so that it is easily and quickly accessible.
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| Build and read sight words through sensory play! Offer the children only the letters for each sight word in the sensory tray. Then invite them to build and read each word. |
Make sequencing the alphabet meaningful for your child. Once they have confidently sequenced a to z, invite them to sequence familiar names such as family and friends. Another extension of this concept is sequencing objects from around your home in alphabetic order. This invites the children to think about the initial letter sound of words. Gather a collection of initial letter sound objects in a basket or collect them together with your child to engage them even more in the learning process. Then have fun placing the objects in order based on their initial letter sound. For those children who are ready, they could print the letters of the alphabet out on a large paper or cardboard and use it when sequencing the objects.
We would love to hear about your alphabet play. Share in the comments below and let our creative community read all about it.
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