alphabet Archives - Teacher's Brain

Letter Work Activities for Kindergarten

July 21, 2023 teachersbrain Back to School, kindergarten survival, Teaching Tips

We all know that teaching letters to our little ones can be an exciting and crucial milestone. If you’re looking for a delightful collection of interactive and engaging letter work activities for kindergarten learners, you’re in the right place! From letter hunts to multi-sensory creations, you’ll love these ways to make letter learning a joyous experience for our little learners.

Here are some letter work activities your students will love:

Letter of the Week

Introduce one letter each week, and make it super exciting! Decorate the classroom with pictures of things that start with that letter, read books featuring the letter, and encourage kids to bring in items from home that begin with the letter of the week.

Multi-Sensory Activities

Engage your kiddos in hands-on activities involving different senses. Use materials like sand or shaving cream for letter writing, have them mold letters out of playdough, or use finger paint to create letter art (more exciting alphabet activities here!)

Letter Hunts

Turn letter recognition into an adventure! Organize letter hunts around the classroom or school. Give them a list of letters to find, and when they spot one, they can call it out with excitement.

Letter Sounds Practice

Once they get a good grasp of individual letter names, introduce letter sounds. You can do this through playful activities like “What Sound Does it Make?” where you show them pictures of objects and ask which letter sound they hear at the beginning.

Letter Writing Practice

Provide them with plenty of opportunities to practice writing the letters. Start with large-sized letters on paper or whiteboards, and as they improve, gradually move to smaller ones.

If you’re looking for a resource that has everything you need to make letter work fun and easy and more, I have you covered!

This Kindergarten Everything Mega Bundle will have you set for the year!

I have you covered with this huge endless curriculum bundle of bundles with a MASSIVE AMOUNT of materials made with kindergarten in mind! Even assessments are included.

YEAR-LONG SUBJECTS

Guided Reading
Monthly Writing Themed Journals
Morning Work Journals
Kindergarten Math Centers
Science
Social Studies

Check out the YouTube Tutorial!

Reading Curriculum includes activities, lesson plans and assessments for:

Phonics
Phonemic awareness
Comprehension
Vocabulary
Fluency

Kindergarten Math Centers includes activities, lesson plans and assessments for:

SCIENCE includes activities, lesson plans and assessments for:

Social Studies includes activities, lesson plans and assessments for:

BONUS – Butterfly Life Cycle Flip Book

Writing Journals Included: (with word banks and rubrics)

BONUS: Silly Story Starters

Kindergarten Morning Work Included:

• August and September Morning Work

• October and November Morning Work

• December and January Morning Work

• February and March Morning Work

• April and May Morning Work

When I say this has everything, I mean it! Check it out here!

I hope you found these tips and resources helpful! Remember to celebrate progress! Be generous with praise and encouragement. Positive reinforcement goes a long way in building kindergarten students confidence and love for learning!

Fun Alphabet Practice Activities For Kids

July 15, 2022 teachersbrain kindergarten survival, Reading, Teacher's Pay Teachers, Teaching Tips

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.

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

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.

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.

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!

How to Make Alphabet Worksheets Fun

September 10, 2021 teachersbrain kindergarten survival, Reading

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.

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

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!

The Importance of Alphabet Practice in Preschool

September 3, 2021 teachersbrain Reading, Teaching Tips

Preschool teaches so many foundational skills for young students that they will go on to use every day. Shapes, colors, and numbers are skills that must be learned before students can start learning the basics covered in later grades.

One of the most important concepts to learn, however, is the alphabet. It’s true that they will cover this in kindergarten as well, but preschool is a great time to get them familiar with the concept so they start elementary school with the skills they need to succeed in reading and writing.

The alphabet can be tricky for students at first.

Not only are there 26 letters to memorize, but you also have to learn the uppercase and lowercase versions of it! The shapes of letters don’t necessarily come naturally to young learners. If not practiced frequently, they could struggle with letter identification through kindergarten or even first grade.

Along with letter identification, it is also important to teach them what sounds each letter makes.

Ensuring that they know the sounds of each letter is an important precursor to learning to read. Students will begin working with sight words in kindergarten so making sure they have a basic understanding of letter identification and sounds will give them a headstart.

Alphabet tracing worksheets are a great way to practice with this age group. This can scaffold students’ writing skills and help with letter recognition and formation. Crafts are also a great way to do this because writing, tracing, coloring, cutting, and gluing help with their fine motor skills.

This Alphabet Practice A-Z Bundle is all you need to help your preschool students perfect these skills.

This alphabet packet includes crafts, worksheets, and activities for each letter of the alphabet. You can use these printables and crafts in centers, whole group, small group, or for homework.

These activities will have your students confidently identifying and writing their letters as well as recognizing their sounds. They will be proud of the cool crafts they create for each letter and want to share them with others. It’s the perfect way to get them engaged!

For more creative ways to practice the alphabet, check out my post here.

What are your favorite ways to work on the alphabet with preschool students?