Today Natalie from Collaborating in Kinder is guest posting about Making Alphabet Activities More Interactive!

Hi all! It’s Natalie from Collaborating in Kinder and I’m here to share with you some of my favorite ways to make learning the alphabet interactive.

Something you will always hear me talking about is how so SO important it is to make learning interactive – because it is! Your brain creates new pathways much quicker when you’re using multiple areas.

That means, make your instruction and activities as multi-sensory as possible and I guarantee you will see the difference in your students.

One of my favorite ways to do this is with shaving cream. I know what you’re thinking – but the mess!! Take a deep breath… and remind yourself that a mess means learning is happening.

I love to use shaving cream as an assessment instead of worksheets. Just spread it out all over the table, have students roll up their sleeves, and then they can use their finger to trace letters as you say a sound or upper/lowercase.

It’s really not as hard to clean up as you’d think, I promise, and your room will smell good all day long.

A similar activity is using a sand tray and tracing letters. You can use a plastic container and a shallow layer of salt or sand and then have students trace letters.

When I teach CVC words, I like to use a 3-compartment tray and have them write a letter in each compartment – like a hands-on sound box!

Whenever possible, I like to include fine motor practice in my activities. A class favorite is lacing letters. You can have students say a letter or sound and lace it or put letters in abc order.

Another great fine motor activity is to have magnetic letters or plastic letters and have students pick them up with tweezers. You can prompt them to find a specific letter or sound. You could also have 3D objects that represent each letter sound and have students pick those up.

When I’m working with my whole class at the beginning of the year – or even small groups – I don’t always want to deal with a lot of prep or manipulatives. I usually save those for centers to make them really special.

I created this As Easy as ABC unit to provide my kids with no prep practice that was still fun and interactive. Each page has a hands-on aspect that requires fine motor work and problem solving. This is an example of a cut and identify page – there’s one for each letter.

Here, students use a paperclip and pencil to spin a letter, then identify the uppercase or lowercase, and trace it. You can easily laminate this to make it reusable!

I am a strong believer in art and coloring – especially in kindergarten! On these pages, students will identify pictures that begin with a letter sound and can color them in. Only two pictures on each page do not begin with that letter, so there can be plenty of coloring 😉

You can try out all the letter Aa activities before you commit to the whole unit by clicking the picture below:

You can find the As Easy as ABC unit by clicking on the picture below:

Thank you for stopping in to see my ideas today! I hope you got some ideas of your own from this. If you enjoyed these activities, stop by my blog Collaborating in Kinder to see even more or visit my TPT store!