Learning the Alphabet: Printable ABC Packs

I’m so excited to share a NEW Alphabet series that NSis {currently 2 years, 9 months} has been using behind the scenes for the last few weeks! It’s called Learning the Alphabet and is designed to help kids learn letters (upper and lowercase) and their sounds. It’s a “prequel” to Reading the Alphabet and contains the same kinds of hands-on activities.

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Teaching Young Children the ABC’s

Before I share the specifics, I want to remind all of us that every child is different. The activities included each week were designed to make learning the alphabet hands-on, playful and interactive. Very few of the alphabet activities are “print and go” like you’d find in a workbook.

With that being said, please feel free to adapt the pages as you see fit for your child/students. Follow the lead and interests of your child. This is KEY, especially when teaching young children.

Although the packs will be shared for free in ABC order each Sunday, I actually recommend NOT teaching the alphabet in ABC order. For one, I like to start with the letters in this child’s name to make it more meaningful. This is especially important for reluctant learners. You can read more of our tips for teaching letters and sounds here. {I know that most readers will want them released in ABC order, so this is the order I’ve chosen.}

 

 

Learning the Alphabet Activities & Printables

Today, I’m going to walk you through all the activities included in each printable ABC pack PLUS share about the bonus material, which can only be found in the $10 Bundle Pack. There’s a lot of information here, but I’m hopeful it will be a helpful resource as you use these printables with your child/students. I am thankful to Kinka Art for the amazing clip art for each lesson!

To read more about how we use these supplies for Learning the Alphabet, click HERE.

 

1. Simple Alphabet Books

Each pack contains a little book that has a simple image and word below it. Six images are included for each letter. The books can be printed in color or in black and white. NSis really loves coloring, so the black and white is what she prefers.

The books can be read over and over and are a fantastic way to build vocabulary with young children. By the 3rd or 4th time through, kids can even “read” it with you!

 

2. Alphabet Tracing Page

These are exactly like the ones you’ll find in our Handwriting Practice Pack, except they match with the clip art from Learning the Alphabet. NSis enjoys these, but we don’t spend a ton of time doing them. I placed all of them in plastic sleeve protectors and created a Handwriting Notebook for her. I let her pull out her notebook when she’d like to “play” with writing.

 

3. Alphabet Lacing Cards

In both upper and lower case letters, these cards include the six images from the Alphabet Books. I recommend printing these onto cardstock, laminating and hole punching along the edges to make alphabet lacing cards.

These cards are great for letter recognition, letter sounds, and hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills. If your child is very young, be prepared to help her thread the lacing card.

 

4. Cut & Paste a Letter Sound

This activity features several different skills at the same time, namely cutting, gluing, letter recognition and letter sounds. The large block upper and lowercase letters can be adapted many other ways as well.

If you follow the directions on the printable, first the child cuts the picture strips for the letter. This is similar to the Cut & Pattern activities with Reading the Alphabet, our Pre-K/K Packs, and our Cut it Out! Packs {level 1} except the strips are a bit smaller for smaller hands. Our absolute FAVORITE pair of scissors for young learners is the Maped Koopy Spring Scissors. Seriously amazing because they eliminate a lot of the frustration for young learners.

NSis is still perfecting her scissors skills, but she loves to try. {Notice my fingers are also in the photograph above. She still needs quite a bit of help.} I helps tremendously to print these strips onto cardstock so that the paper isn’t so flimsy.

 

Once cut out, the images are glued down around the letter. As you glue them down, name each picture together.

 

You can also take these blank letter pages and adapt them for what your child likes to do. NSis loves our alphabet stamps, so we stamped n‘s in the capital N.

 

5. Roll and Race!

Instead of your basic upper and lowercase sort, do a little rolling and racing as you climb the letter ladder. Such a simple yet fun game for teaching letter recognition.

Instead of using the letter cards pictured above, you could also use letter stamps, letter stickers or have your child write the upper and lowercase letters in the rungs of each ladder {for those who are ready}.

 

6. Letter Puzzles

These are simple letter puzzles containing the alphabet pictures with words. The cards can be cut by the child or cut ahead of time.

Mix up all the pieces {12 pieces total} and let your child rematch them. They can also be reworked and glued down the next day. And if you want to make it a little more challenging, also cut the cards vertically to make it four pieces.

 

7. Roll and Match a Letter Sound

Rolling letter sounds has been a favorite of NSis. She LOVES our Photo Stacking Blocks and asks to play with the all.the.time. I knew these packs wouldn’t be complete without rolling activities. This one is also  very simple, yet is a great way to teach vocabulary.

For her, I print off the letter picture inserts twice. We take turns rolling {really, she throws and/or kicks them} and trying to match the pictures, like alligator/alligator.

To use the blocks for more letters, print off the images you need and insert the same number of images from each letter in each block. For example, if you wanted to compare three letter sounds, insert 2 letter images for each letter each of the blocks.

In the bonus material from the Bundle Pack, you’ll find letter inserts, so you can roll and match letters and pictures. More bonus material is shared at the end of this post.

 

8. Alphabet Coloring Pages

Yes, I did include an upper and lowercase coloring page for each letter simply because NSis loves to color.

Feel free to use it any way you’d like, such as letting your child paint the pages.

 

9. Alphabet Do-a-Dot Pages

My advice is to wait to use the Do-a-Dot paint markers with these because you can get multiple uses out of these pages if you

use counters or pom-poms with them

 

or Power Magnets {she worked this one 5 times in one sitting using the different colors of magnets, all of her own accord}.

 

You can also use circle stickers.

 

And, of course, Do-a-Dot Paint Markers. In this pack, you’ll find four different versions of these Alphabet Do-a-Dot pages. Simple ones like those seen above and harder ones featuring both upper and lower case letters.

 

10. Letter 10-Grid

We love grid games. They cover so many literacy and math objectives. You can read more about with our Alphabet Grid Games.

These are for younger children and feature numbers 1-10. You can re-label a smaller die or print off the 1-3 die template {seen in the image above} found in the bonus material of the Bundle Pack.

 

11. Alphabet Playdough Mats

These playdough mats are interactive, similar to our Alphabet Playdough Mats Pack, but also get kids to work on recognizing numbers 1-10 and one-to-one correspondence.

I always slip these into plastic sleeve protectors first. Draw a number card and add that many objects to the page with playdough, based on the directions. In the example above, the child is to add bubbles to the fish page.

 

12. Numbers Pages for 1-10

These number pages are also great for Do-a-Dot Paint Markers, Power Magnets, counters, stickers, or pom-poms. These are similar to the ones in Reading the Alphabet or our Pre-K/K packs, except they are for numbers 1-10.

Place all the number cards in a pile. These are the same number cards used for the playdough mat. I HIGHLY recommend laminating them, as you’ll use them in every pack A to Z.

 

13. Number Cards 1-10

Included with each letter are number cards 1-10, which can be played with in many ways.

Read the number and practice one-to-one correspondence by adding that many objects to the card. Lay them on the floor and jump to the numbers.

 

Place them in order 1 through 10. More ideas are included on the Number Card pages.

 

Bonus Material! for Learning the Alphabet

Each Sunday, I will release a new alphabet pack in ABC order, starting January 11, 2015. If you want to purchase all of the letters in our Bundle Pack, I have included 6 extra letter activities as a THANK YOU. These cannot be found in the free version. They are as follows:

 

1. Die Template 1-3 and Blank Die Template- Print out these die templates to create the 1-3 die needed for the Letter 10-Grid activities. The blank die can be used for rolling letter sounds when you want to use something other than the Photo Stacking Blocks.

 

2. Letter, Word, and Picture Cards- NSis LOVES to play with these in our table top pocket chart. We usually do one letter at a time, placing the letters up and naming each of the 6 picture cards together. Sometimes we categorize pictures like: things that go in the sky and things that do not go in the sky.

 

She also loves to grab a handful and play with them herself, naming and renaming the pictures. There are TONS of hands-on ways you can use alphabet cards, like I share about here.

 

Not only do you get the letters and alphabet picture cards, but there are also word cards to match to the pictures. Of course, children learning the alphabet will not typically be able to read these cards, but they are a great extension to the Simple Alphabet Book.

 

3. Alphabet Wall Cards- Alphabet wall cards are a great way to review the letters learn so far. They can be placed on your wall or played by your child in a more hands-on way.

Our Wall cards feature a color picture for the letter, the word for the picture and the letter on lines. Consonants are in blue and the vowels are in red. Older children may enjoy using the wall cards to remind them how to form letters when working on handwriting.

 

4. Letter Inserts for Photo Stacking Blocks– as mentioned above in the post for the Roll and Match a Letter Sound Activity.

 

5. Alphabet Clip Cards- These are similar to the Syllable Count & Clip Cards found in Reading the Alphabet or in our Pre-K/K Packs as well as our Phoneme Clip Cards.

Say each picture name and clip the beginning letter.

 

6. Alphabet Sound Tic-Tac-Toe- This fun letter sound game is a perfect way to practice the sounds kids have been learning.

You will find 26 letter cards and 10 game boards with no repeating images!

Please make sure you read helpful tips if you are not able to download or print the file. Thanks!

 

 

 

So there you have it! Whew. I hope that helps to explain what exactly you’ll find in every letter pack of Learning the Alphabet. Again, each pack will be released weekly, but you can purchase the Bundle Pack now {in 4 downloads, which includes the Bonus Material} so you can implement the letters in any order you’d like!

 

 

If you have a child who already knows letters and letter sounds, consider purchasing our Reading the Alphabet Bundle Pack.

 

There’s an App for Learning Alphabet Sounds!

Alphabet Sounds Learning App has FOUR levels of interactive play designed to extend your child’s understanding of letters and their sounds. It will definitely grow with your little one!