Learning my ABC’s: Thirty Days of Alphabet Fun

Well, not strictly my ABC’s.  I know my ABC’s, but B4 doesn’t know hers and would like to so I am happily obliging.  We began the beginning of this week and it was really fun.  She really wants to learn and caught on fairly quickly.  The plan is to cover a letter a day, five days a week with some practice each week end on the letters learnt in the preceding week.

This post is mainly for my own benefit, to be honest, so I can make a note of all the resources I am using over the next term.  My goal is for B4 to know her alphabet and all the phonic sounds of each letter by the end of this coming term (ten weeks or so).

A6 goes to my mum each morning for an hour of concentrated reading between 9 and 10 (she reads to my mum for 30 minutes and mum reads aloud for 30 minutes).  The older children complete their maths on line for an hour, which frees me up to spend an hour, one to one with my littlest.  And if today and yesterday are anything to go by, I think we are going to have a lot of fun.

Our main curriculum is All About Reading (Pre-Reading level):

It is scripted, open up and ready to use type curriculum, which suits the stage of life I am in perfectly.  Each morning we begin with a read aloud of the ABC books, pictured in the middle.  This is to familiarise B4 with the alphabet without the pressure of actually learning any letters.  She has particularly enjoyed revisiting The ABC Bunny, one of her preschool FIAR books.

After we have read them together, we sing the ABC song which she already knows off by heart.  We are now ready for the actual lesson.  I pretty much follow the directives of the book.  We look at the posters to find the letter of the day, carry out any of the activities using the puppet included with the program for extra fun factor.  Once we have finished the lesson she does two sheets of a work book I bought for her.  She does the lessons focused on the letter she has just learnt:

I like the simplicity of this work book and it seems pitched at just the right level for her.  Their are extra work sheet for her to do over the weekend if she wants which will reinforce all the letters she has learnt in the previous week.

Over the week end I bought a book which goes through the alphabet using felt pieces to create letter related pictures.  This is a perfect activity for B4 and I am so pleased I bought it.  All the felt pieces come with it, so there is little to no preparations which is just how I like it.  For a couple of pounds it feels very worth the money for this little girl.

Each day I will throw together a basket of letter related things which I find around the house.  This one was today’s and was for the letter B.  In it I included a ball, some blue mini balls, some blue glitter, some beads, buttons and bear tags.  I also raided our animal box and found some butterflies, bears, a beetle, a bunny as well as a little cuddly bunny toy.  L12 has made me an entire alphabet from loom bands so I popped in her loom band B.  I also have crafted an alphabet from pipe cleaners and added my B as well as the B which comes from an alphabet Leap Frog toy we own.

Each day she will practice forming the letter using a white board and her computer which has a writing app.

And finally we will use the Leap Frog toy each lesson.  It sings the alphabet song to her (which she can sing along to) and also has a function whereby she places a letter in the slot at the top and it will tell her what the letter is called and each of the sounds it makes.  The letter stampers will also be used daily in all the extra bits and bobs, which I will be sharing weekly.

In addition to all of the above I will be using a myriad of hands on approaches to help her memorise the letters.  I intend to share five free and fun hands on activities each week which can be used with any letter for reinforcement and memorisation.  These activities won’t even require a printer, just basic items that can be found around the house.  B4 hopefully will be having so much fun she won’t even realise what she is learning.

I will also use many of the wonderful free printables out there as and when.  These will be used with discretion because I think it would be too easy to just let her at the work sheets and miss out on all the fun of sitting next to her and learning along side her.  She is my last little one and I want to make the most of every moment.  However, if I think she needs more help with a particular letter I shall not hesitate to use some work sheet type practice.