Home"pre"schooling - Letters

Aside from working on colors with Hadley, another objective I wanted to focus on was learning the alphabet. She has been able to sing her ABC's for months but, up until lately, hadn't made a lot of progress on individual letter recognition. Caleb, on the other hand, took forever to learn the alphabet song (I think he was three), but before his second birthday he already knew half his letters. It is so interesting to me how their little brains work differently, developing uniquely and at their own pace. Both of them are smart kids, but their learning styles and interests just vary and it is so fasinating for me to look at the comparisons - not to measure one against the other, but to contrast the diversity in their varying developmental stages.

Caleb acquired his letter id skills pretty much through impromptu situations. Whenever an opportunity would pop up where he'd show interest or I had a book or toys handy that we could use, we talked about it until he was bored and then moved on. These types of dialogues haven't happened as much with Hadley. I don't know if it is because I am busier and not looking for opportunities like I used to, or if Caleb was just more interested in letters at her age, but over the past month, we've become more purposeful about it.  When Caleb started school, I started working with Hadley on one letter per week. 

One of the activities we do regulary is making a simple craft with each letter on a piece of construction paper. When we've completed the entire alphabet, I am planning to compile them all into a book for her to keep.

This whole idea began with a craft I saw my cousin Stacey's kids bring home from preschool a year or two ago that I remembered doing as a kid - stamping with apples. We cut an apple in half and used it to make prints on our paper.

Caleb was excited to be a part of this activity too.

You're doing it, Hadley-girl.

Caleb's is on top (notice his apples have eyes) and Hadley's is on the bottom.

When the task was complete, they also got a little unstructured painting time to do their own thing and be creative while everything was still out. (Reid was napping, of course, as he usually is when we attempt these things.)

For letters B, C, and D, Pinterest was my go to. I looked for ideas I thought we could do easily and went for it. (Typically, I cut out all the pieces for them to keep things simpler though, in the future I may need to let them do some of this to develop those skills.)

For the giant letters we needed for these projects, I used printables from ABCmouse.com.

Hadley had a hard time with this one and mostly wanted to play with the glue stick and a pair of scissors, but we got it done. 

Caleb was very careful on his "Bee" and it turned out cute.

Sometimes we don't get to our craft until later in the evenings when Reid is in bed.

C is for cookie...that's good enough for me.

Hadley's and Caleb's

Who doesn't love to get their hands messy for a fun project?

Caleb's and Hadley's duckies!

Now the work is done...on to more messy fun!

While we are on the topic of art, here are few more pics. I also have Hadley do a coloring sheet to introduce the letter of the week since she enjoys that kind of thing. Caleb never has shown much interest in sitting down to color a handout (he'd rather draw his own thing), but she loves it so we use it as another way to get in some exposure to the ABC's. ABCmouse.com has several sheets available to print, but a quick Google search also often does the trick just as well.

Sometimes I can even get some cleaning done while she's working. Win! 

She often already holds her crayon correctly without even being taught. Good girl!

Occassionally, Caleb will join in.

Rather than being at the table all the time, working on the floor can be a good change of scenery.

Caleb's fine motor skills aren't as advanced as his sister's. We are working on it, but he's got lots of time to get there!

Sometimes we take our work to Granny's.

This handout I found for Caleb was a little more challenging. He had to color the capitals one color and the lowercase another to form a picture.

Hadley especially loves when she gets to use markers!

Mom bought us a set of flashcards that I use too. Caleb did awesome with these when he was little, but Hadley seemed distracted by the characters when I first started using them a while back. Now she's showing more interest though and they're working for us. 

Rather than going through all 26 letters and frustrating her, I only put the letters she knows, uses but confuses, or is currently learning. This way we stay within her zone of proximal development and it keeps her from being overwhelmed and shutting down.

Dave's mom bought one of the kids (Hadley - I think) a set of Baby Einstein "Alphabooks" that are a good resource as well. Each letter has its own mini book with pictures and words discuss. (Sometimes we even use the books as flashcards too.) It only takes a few minutes to sit down and work with these little tools, but they definitely make a big difference in retention.

My friend Andi had some letter charts at her house that I noticed when we were visiting for a play date a couple years ago, and after looking at hers, I decided to purchase a couple to use as both learning toosl and decor for our playroom. These, too, have come in handy when working towards our objectives. Each alphabet pocket includes a copy of the capital and lowercase letters as well as pictures that start with that letter. These are great manipulatives to use for sorting, working not just the letters themselves but the sounds they make as well.

Hadley has created a unique method for holding her cards.

The computer also plays a role in our weekly lessons. I signed up for ABC Mouse about six months ago and it has been an incredible resource for Caleb. Hadley isn't old enough to do a lot of the activities on her own yet, especially since she hasn't learned to use the keyboard or mouse at this point, but being the music lover that she is, she is crazy about the songs. They have three songs for each letter of the alphabet as well as ones for colors, shapes, etc. Additionally, we use Youtube Sesame Street videos. A search for each letter through their search engine will usually provide several viewing options.

While all the tools we have are great, the kids seem to learn a lot just from simple little activities. For example, to work with the letter C, we made chocolate chip cookies.

Another day I drew letters on the sidewalk with chalk and made a game out of reviewing the letters and colors we'd learned up to that point.

Caleb LOVED this and was very enthusiastic.

It took Hadley a little while to catch on, but she tried her best and her brother's excitement rubbed off. 

And, just as we did for learning colors, we go on hunts for letters - one of Caleb's favorite activities.

For the letter B, he suggested we look in the closet because there would be lots of buttons.

I think we all like it best when those hunts lead us out doors.

Where better to go to look for letter A items than under the acorn tree?

Ants!

Sometimes you find other things of interest to check out.

The funniest part of all? Recess after the hunt!

Is it working? Yep, it seems to be! 

Even though we've only done five letters so far, Hadley is picking up even more as we go and can name somewhere around ten letters consistently - a big jump from a month ago. She also is very interested in the sounds they make and is making connections in her little brain as we go. I'm really proud of her and am looking forward to more progress. I also feel proud of myself for buckling down and making sure to challenge her mind instead of getting too bogged down in the to-dos of the day. We're getting there!