Letter Games

It has been a long time since we last posted. First of all, I had a wonderful Christmas vacation and was able to see all of my siblings. I always learn so much from them and their parenting. They give me great ideas of things I should try with my kids.

My sisters who are also contributors to this blog are pros at homeschooling and I wish they could post more in this blog, but they are busy homeschooling their kids. So you are stuck with suggestions from me :)

What do we do with these flash cards and pictures to learn letter sounds? Do we just drill our kids with the flash cards? Not at all!

We play "letter games." My 2 year old, T, loves it so much that she asks me to do letter games every day. My mom has a talent with making up fun games that children love. I will share some games that she has shown me and some other games I use. I hope they are not confusing. If you don't understand them, just comment and ask me to explain better.

*Silly Commands- Lay out 4 cards (with pictures showing or just letters showing, depending on how well they know the letter sounds). Tell them to do silly things with one card. For example, Can you find a monkey toy in your room and put it on the /m/ card? Can you give the /i/ a kiss? Can you sit on /t/? Can you jump on /l/? Kids love this one the sillier you make the commands.

*Run & Get It- Have your child place 4 letter cards at the end of a hallway and you sit on the opposite side of the long hallway. After your child placed the cards at the end of the hallway, she comes back to you. You whisper to your child, "run and get me the /p/" She runs all the way down the hall, picks up the /p/ card and brings it back to you. You have to cheer and shout and tell her to run as fast as you can. My kids always want to play this game.

*Fill up the envelope- This is a great one for them to understand that there are both lower case and capital letters. Get two envelopes (or make simple envelopes) and write both lower and upper case letters on each one (like P and p on one envelope and J and j on the other envelope). Tape each envelope to a different chair (preferably across the room.) Cut out smaller pieces of papers with lots of P, p, J and j's. Put these smaller papers in a small bag or box. Have your child draw a letter out of the bag or box and run and place it in the right envelope. Make sure to say the letter sound many times or ask them what sound that letter makes.

*Musical Letter Sounds- Place 6-8 letter cards in a circle. Put on some music and walk around while stepping on the letter cards. When the music stops, each person has to make the sound the letter they are standing on makes.

Let me know if you use these games and how it goes! Maybe I will post some more!