Letter Learning

When Honeybun was about 2 1/2 years old, she became very interested in the alphabet and was starting to recognize the letters and name them.  I decided to put up a letter chart for her but didn’t want to spend money on a cheesy store bought one (and wouldn’t have even known where to look in Dublin!) so I decided to make one for her.

I had made one for the classroom I worked in when she was a baby using pictures of things the children encountered in their lives.  I never understood the store bought ones that were all animals and included uncommon things like yak, unicorn, and x-ray fish (I mean, seriously, when was the last time you saw a unicorn?!?!).  I know it’s important for young children to be able to relate what they are learning to their everyday life.

SONY DSCWhen I made Honeybun’s ABCs, I took it a step farther: I used pictures of things in our house.  I had her help me find one things that started with each letter, which was challenging for her at the time and put each picture with each letter on an excel spreadsheet, printed, cut and hung on the kitchen cabinets.  She learned all her letters just by looking at the list and pointing to the letters as she sang the ABC song.

SONY DSC We were unable to bring the ABCs with us back from Dublin and since we didn’t have all the same items, we made a new one for our new house.  Honeybun was much better by this time at helping me find objects for each picture.  Now Sugarplum is learning her letters the same way, by looking at the list in the kitchen.

SONY DSCWhile in Dublin I also made a set of mini-letters which I tried to use to help her make words but she didn’t understand and they got put in a box never to come out when we moved, until last week.  Honeybun’s Wednesday homework was to make a list of words using the letters a, i, k, l, o, p, s and t.  I was worried this was going to be hard for her (and therefor a homework battle) so I got out the stack of mini-letters and found the 8 assigned letters and she took right off, making words without even needing my help!  She thought of a word, arranged the letters and wrote it on her paper.  We used the mini letters again the next day when she had to write 6 words ending in “-at”.  I got out all the letters and she put together the “at” and then tried the other letters in front until she came up with her 6 words.  I’ve decided to leave the mini-letters in her homework tool-box as I’m sure we’ll need them again and they’ve been so helpful!