Teacher’s Brain

Fun Alphabet Practice Activities For Kids

Alphabet writing practice is one of the most important parts of preschool or kindergarten instruction. Getting familiar and comfortable recognizing, writing, and using the alphabet is a foundational skill that students will use for the rest of their lives! That’s why it’s so important to make it as fun as possible! 

The more fun kids have, the more engaged in learning they will be! 

How can I make learning the alphabet fun? 

The sky is the limit when it comes to learning the alphabet. Here are some of my favorite alphabet activities for kids. 

  1. Stamp pads. Get some alphabet stamping supplies and let students have fun practicing letters with stamps
  2. Finger paint. Let students get their hands dirty and finger-paint the letters. 
  3. Sand tables. This one is great if you have the supplies. Simply have students write their letters in the sand. 
  4. Shaving cream. Simply spray some shaving cream on each desk, spread it out, and let students write letters in it! 
  5. Lego Letters. Get out some Lego blocks and have students build the letters with them.
  6. Pipe Cleaners. Twist pipe cleaners to make letters. 
  7. Dry Erase Boards. Practice writing and erasing letters with dry-erase markers and boards. 
  8. Sidewalk Chalk. Decorate the sidewalk with letters. 
  9. Have a letter scavenger hunt. 
  10. Play I Spy with the alphabet. 

There are so many ways to get creative with learning the alphabet. If you are looking for some traditional alphabet practice sheets or even alphabet tracing worksheets, I have you covered! 

This Alphabet Writing Practice Bundle comes with everything you need!

alphabet writing practice

It comes with alphabet worksheets, alphabet tracing, and alphabet crafts for every letter A-Z! 

These provide hands-on options as well as worksheets to help with busy mornings. Students will learn how to work independently after the first couple of letter sets are used because every unit follows the same pattern. There are plenty of things to choose from for the week if you are doing a letter a week. Students will practice fine motor skills with writing, cutting, and tracing.

alphabet writing practice

What is the download?

  • LETTER A: 16 printables which include 3 crafts, a spinning game, letter identification, forming letters, playdough letters, BINGO daubing, tracing letters (upper and lowercase), letter sounds, and beginning sounds of words.
  • LETTER B: 16 printables which include 3 crafts, a spinning game, letter identification, forming letters, playdough letters, BINGO daubing, tracing letters, letter sounds, and beginning sounds of words. 
  • LETTERS C-Z These will follow the same format as units for letters A & B, but with different crafts.
Alphabet practice
alphabet practice

Want to try it out for FREE? Check out my free Alphabet Worksheets and Crafts resource here! 

Let your students have a blast while they master identifying the upper and lowercase letters, reviewing the sound, writing letters, and creating crafts with these printable practice pages. These make morning work, literacy centers, small groups, or home reviews a breeze!

What’s in the download?

P. 1 Cover

p. 2 More Resources

P. 3 Letter Aa practice

P. 4 Letter B Mini Book

P. 5 Letter C Play-Doh Trace 

P. 6-7 Letter A Alligator Craft

P. 8-9 Letter T Tiger Craft

P. 10 Color by Code Letter L

P. 11 Answer Key

P. 12 CREDITS

What are your favorite alphabet practice activities? Let me know in the comments!

Digital Sight Word Puzzles for Practice

We know how important sight words are in those early grades. They are crucial to developing reading fluency and expanding reading comprehension. It’s also a nice little confidence boost for beginning readers when they come across words they know! 

To do this, we generally work on them in class and hand out our sight word lists for students to practice at home and they get them checked off as they master them. This is a simple and effective way to make sure your students are getting the practice they need! However, it’s not the most engaging or fun thing to do. 

How can we make sight word practice fun and engaging? 

I have lots of ideas on this topic including this cute and fun sight word teacher dress, sight word escape rooms, plus all of these fun, hands-on activities listed here.

You could say making sight word practice fun is a passion of mine! 

Today I wanted to share another sight word practice activity that is a unique and engaging way for kindergarten and first grade students to master those sight words. 

These digital Sight Word Puzzles are guaranteed to get your students excited to practice! 

sight word puzzles

Created using interactive Google Slides, students will get to solve a puzzle using picture clues. They’ll locate the sight words and write them in the text box. 

Two types are included 3×3 and 5×5 so you can differentiate and choose the difficulty level appropriate for your students. 

sight word puzzles

This resource comes with 11 unique puzzles for students to work through at once or spread out. Plus, it comes with a fun bonus puzzle for those who need a little extra work for a real challenge. 

I love this activity because it is completely digital. This means that it is perfect for students in the classroom or who are doing virtual school. So no matter the status of the pandemic or the weather, you can reach for these digital puzzles. 

Here’s what’s included

Eleven total puzzles. Ten puzzles are 3×3 (easy version) and ten are 5×5 (more difficult to put together.) One puzzle is the bonus challenge. It is 5×5 and has 12 sight words instead of 6. 

Students drag the puzzle pieces over the image area (picture cue) to solve the puzzle and see the sight words. Then, they will type the sight words into the corresponding area. When they are done you can have them send them back to you to check.

sight word puzzles

Wondering what sight words are used in this resource? 

I, like, the, and, see, we, a, to come, me, with, my, you, what, are, now, is, how, of, so, many, where find, this, from, came, on, will, be, into, that, your, who, go, for, here, they, soon, up, make, play, them, give, say, new, said, good, was, then, ate, could, she, all, over, her, when, some he, no, must, saw, down, there, day, too, take, off, put, saw, their, very, look, ask every, one, walk

Learn more about these sight word puzzles in my video here! 

What are your favorite ways to practice sight words? Let me know in the comments!

sight word puzzles

 

FREE Kindergarten Math Centers Your Students Will LOVE

Math centers are a fun and effective way to get kindergarten students engaged in learning and applying important math skills and strategies that we are working on in the classroom. 

Your students get to have a more active role in their learning when you use engaging centers, and it gives you a chance to do more one-on-one instruction with the students who need it. This gives students an increased sense of independence, which is always a great thing! 

They will also get the opportunity to work with hands-on manipulatives. With students this age, this improves their motivation to learn which then increases their outcomes and helps them hit benchmarks with ease. You can do individual testing once they know how to do centers independently. 

I love coming up with fun and creative centers to get my students excited about math. The opportunities are truly endless! 

My favorite math centers theme is a “Math Salad Bar” or “Math Café”

math centers

You can make your Math Café (or Buffet or Salad Bar) out of a bookcase or a rolling cart. A student pulls out the manipulative cart and then they choose a recipe card that functions like a task card. It includes the material list, number of people who can participate in the math activity, picture cues, and directions. They will choose their partners if required, fill their tray with materials, and do the activity anywhere in the room! They can easily clean up by using a tray to hold their materials.

Here are three fun activities to include in your café

  • Roll and Cover Caterpillar
  • Sorting Bears by Color
  • Fish Match-Up Addition

The best part is, you can get all three of these math centers for FREE by visiting my store here.

math centers

You’ll get everything you need to get started with your own Math Salad Bar or Math Café. 

Check out this video on how to set it up in your classroom!

For more tips, you can also check out my post here.

If you love these and want some more activities, you can get more with the full bundle here! This yearlong bundle includes digital cards, blank recipe cards, assessments, posters, and crafts as well as more math centers. 

What is your favorite thing about math centers? Let me know in the comments!

Math Centers for kindergarten

How to Make Alphabet Worksheets Fun

Teachers cringe in primary grades with they hear the word “worksheets”, but we all understand that they are important hands-on tools for developing readers and writers. They truly are the simplest and most straightforward way to give students lots of practice with the skills they need to learn. 

Worksheets get a bad rap in my opinion! 

If you have worksheets that require cutting, coloring, painting, folding, thinking, and creating, they serve as great learning tools for developing minds. It also gives students a variety of ways to practice their skills so they don’t get restless. They don’t have to be boring! There are so many ways to make them fun.

worksheets

 Center time is a great time to use worksheets. 

This is because students can work together to create a group project or individually to learn beginning sounds, letter formation, and practice letter identification.  These worksheets and crafts are great for that. 

Here are some creative ways to use alphabet worksheets in your classroom

worksheets

  • Add playdough to a worksheet to form letters for fine motor skills.
  • Add them into plastic sleeves and let students use dry erase markers to fill them out. This saves on paper and also gets students engaged because who doesn’t love using those markers? 
  • Have a snowball fight with them afterward. Students will be more motivated to get their work completed and excited to do them! Just tell them when they are done with their worksheet, bring it to you to check, then if all is well, they can ball it up and make a snowball. When everyone is done, let the snowball fight begin! 
  • Add a soccer goal or basketball hoop! This is a great way to get students up and moving. Once they complete their worksheet and have it checked off, they get to shoot a basket or kick their “ball” into the soccer goal. 
  • Make crafts out of them! As mentioned above and in this post here, crafts are so great for little learners for so many reasons. If you are working on letters, have students create something with their letters. For example, turn the letter A into an alligator by coloring or painting, adding googly eyes, and a mouth. 

I created these alphabet worksheets as a way to give students lots of practice with the letters of the alphabet without getting bored. 

Each letter comes with a variety of activities and ways to practice. It is a complete A-Z bundle so it will be all you need for your reading or writing lessons!

What are your favorite ways to use worksheets in the classroom? Let me know in the comments!