DUPLO Alphabet ~ Little Hands-on ABC’s and 123’s

We play with our LEGO DUPLO Brick Set almost every single day.  I am always amazed at the different creations the girls come up with,especially when playing with their Grandpa.  This activity was so much fun and it was while creating LETTERS!!

The girls would watch as I was creating each letter and try to guess what it was going to be.This was a fun and interactive way to get them talking about the names of the letters, sounds that they made and what they looked like.      

    We could put them together to make words…

…and my girls especially loved that I created the letters for their names too! 

Older children can even get involved and create their own or copy your letters.  Emily was very excited when she was able to use my letters as an example to make her own!

Little Hands-on ABC’s and 123’s is a bi-monthly feature that focuses on practical and simple ideas that you can do at home to help your tot develop their letter and number skills.

Cookie Cutter Numbers ~ Little Hands-on ABC’s and 123’s

This is a fun printing project that works on identifying numbers and the amount they represent.  When I originally did this project with Emily it was just going to be a cookie cutter printing activity with our new  Number Cookie Cutter Set .  However, Emily really wanted to use her finger prints and she turned this into a great math project. 

  

First, Emily used the number cookie cutters to print the different numbers on the paper.

 

Next, Emily added her finger prints inside each of the numbers.

 

This turned out to be a fun project and a great way to practice counting once it was dry! 

Of course you can use as many numbers as you want to practice with your child. 

If you don’t have the number cookie cutters, just trace the outline of the numbers on a piece of paper and have your child use their finger prints inside.

Little Hands-on ABC’s and 123’s is a bi-monthly feature that focuses on practical and simple ideas that you can do at home to help your tot develop their letter and number skills.

Roll and Color Number Game ~ Little Hands-on ABC’s and 123’s

 

When Emily was learning her numbers she really enjoyed doing color by number pages.  When I found roll and color pages I really liked the idea of them because she was still able to be creative and pick the colors she wanted to use, while practicing number recognition.  Since we love games I turned her roll and color pages into a fun learning game that we both had a great time playing. This roll and color number game was a great way to practice counting and numeral recognition.

Here is how we played our roll and color game:

• I printed a Frog Roll and Color coloring page for Emily and one for myself.

• Emily rolled the die, counted the dots and then found that numeral on her coloring page.  Then she colored that section in.  We are always using our foam dot dice for learning activities.  I purchased ours at the dollar store, but you can also find them online.

• Next, it was my turn (I had fun coloring too, if you like to color you will love this game!!).

• If you roll a number that you have already colored you miss your turn

• The winner is the first to finish coloring all the numbered spots on the coloring page.

You can find more Roll and Color printable pages at Making Learning Fun.  You can also make your own by adding numbers to coloring book pages and then making a copy of them.

Little Hands-on ABC’s and 123’s is a bi-monthly feature that focuses on practical and simple ideas that you can do at home to help your tot develop their letter and number skills.

Finger Painting Letter Practice ~ Little Hands-on ABC’s and 123’s

 

I have found that combining finger painting and letter practice is a fun and easy way for little ones to practice working with letters. 

To set up, I gave Emily and Juliette a large sheet of tin foil.  I wanted them to have enough room to explore the paint and also be able to make nice sized letters.  I added some finger paint in the colors of their choice to the tin foil and had them mix it around.

 

 

At first they just enjoyed making lines and squiggles and mazes.

 

Next, I told Emily that she could make letters too.  She wanted to try an E for the first letter of her name.  Then she wiped it away  I had her to try another letter.  We took turns picking letters, writing them and then making the sound.  Since the letters in the paint are so easy to wipe away if she made a mistake she could easily try again.  As Emily got older she now likes to try to write the different words that she knows too.

For Juliette, I would form the letter first, let her trace over it with her finger and then have her try her own next to mine.  So this activity can be adapted to be used with a wide range of ages and abilities. 

Little Hands-on ABC’s and 123’s is a bi-monthly feature that focuses on practical and simple ideas that you can do at home to help your tot develop their letter and number skills.

Numbers Freeze Dance ~ Little Hands-on ABC’s & 123’s

We have been having some great weather so I couldn’t resist doing a fun number activity with the girls outside.  Number Freeze Dance was super easy to set up and the girls had so much fun practicing number recognition as well as getting exercise and enjoying the beautiful weather!!

To set this up I just wrote some large numbers on our cement patio with sidewalk chalk.  Next time I am planning on using our homemade Sidewalk Chalk Paint, since the colors are much more vibrant. 

 

Next, I put on some music and the girls danced around. 

 

Now for the learning part, when I stopped the music I would either say “Freeze on the number 4” and the girls would have to quickly find the number I called out or “Freeze, stop on a number” and the girls would have to pick any number that is near by and then tell me what number they were on.  The girls loved both ways and are already asking to go out and play some more!

 

Little Hands-on ABC’s and 123’s is a bi-monthly feature that focuses on practical and simple ideas that you can do at home to help your tot develop their letter and number skills.

Alphabet Pick-up Sticks ~ Little Hands-on ABC’s and 123’s

Juliette is really excited about learning her letters and the sounds they make.  She sings the ABC song all day, and we are working on recognizing the names and sounds the letters make.  Since both Emily and Juliette always seemed to enjoy learning when we were playing games I put together this Alphabet Pick-up Sticks game for a fun way to practice recognizing letters and their sounds.

To make this game all you need are:

• 27 large craft sticks
• letter stickers and one fun sticker or a permanent marker
• a cup

Take 1 of the craft sticks and place the fun sticker at one end or you can use a permanent marker to make a design on the end, like I did for ours.

If you are using stickers put a letter sticker on one end of  each of the craft sticks, or you can just use the permanent marker to write each letter at the end of the craft sticks.

Once you have all the craft sticks labeled place them  with the letters end down into the plastic cup.  Now you are ready to play!!

 

Have your little one pick one stick from the cup. 

 

If they pull a letter stick they will either tell you the letter they picked or the sound the letter makes, depending on what you want to have them practice.  If they get the letter correct they get to keep the stick.  If they get it incorrect tell them the letter and then have them put the stick back into the cup and the next player goes. 

If they pull the stick with the fun sticker/permanent marker design then they have to put all of their sticks back into the cup, and the next player goes. 

When we played this game we set a timer for 5 minutes and when the timer went off the person with the most sticks was the winner.  You can pick a time based on your child’s age and attention span.  I like to begin with a shorter time so that we end on a positive not and not with her getting bored and walking away from the game. 

Little Hands-on ABC’s and 123’s is a bi-monthly feature that focuses on practical and simple ideas that you can do at home to help your tot develop their letter and number skills.

Little Hands-on ABC’s and 123’s ~ Roll and Fill a Counting Game

Since Juliette has been little she has loved putting popsicle sticks into an empty container and then dumping it out.  We keep the container filled with popsicle sticks in the cabinet where she can reach it and she takes it out to play with them often.  One day, when Emily wanted to use the popsicle sticks with her and I didn’t have an extra empty container for her to use by herself I decided to turn this fun fine motor activity into a new math game that the girls could play together. 

You will need:

• An equal number of popsicle sticks for each player  (We have a huge amount of Colored Wood Craft Sticks so I gave each of us 25 of a different color)   
• A Number Die  (We have these Large Foam Dot Dice that the girls love to use)
• An empty container that will fit the popsicle sticks (We use an empty creamer container with the wrapper removed)

To Play:

The first player rolls the die to see how many popsicle sticks they will put into the container.  Juliette counted the dots to see what number she got.

Place the number of popsicle sticks into the container, one at a time.  As Juliette put each one in she counted to make sure she was putting the correct number in.

Then it is the next players turn.

We play until each person put all of their popsicle sticks into the container, and then begin again!

This game is a great way to practice counting, number recognition,  1:1 correspondence and work on fine motor skills in a fun way.  As we were playing Juliette began to recognize the amount of dots on the die and was able to just tell us the number without counting.

Little Hands-on ABC’s and 123’s is a bi-monthly feature that focuses on practical and simple ideas that you can do at home to help your tot develop their letter and number skills.

Little Hands-on ABC’s and 123’s ~ Letter Sort

This letter sort “game,” as Juliette referred to it was a big hit.  Sorting the letters is a great way to talk about the letters and the sounds that they make while focusing on the shape of each letter and how it looks. 

To set up the activity I picked a few letters to focus on, in this example we were working with the first five letters of the alphabet.  Then I went to my bin of Magnetic Letters and took out all the letters we were going to work with and placed them in a little basket.  Then I wrote each letter on a piece of colored construction paper to create letter mats for Juliette to sort the Magnetic Letters onto.

 

Juliette picked a letter from the basket

 

Then she showed it to me and told me the name of the letter.  We sang the letter song from the Letter Factory DVD to practice the sounds. 

(The A says “ah",” The A says “ah,” every letter makes a sound the A says “Ah”)

Finally, she placed the letter on the matching letter mat and continued by picking a new letter.  Juliette was excited to see all of the magnetic letters filling up the mats!

If you do not have a huge collection of magnetic letters look around your house for other letters that you can use.  I noticed we have foam letter puzzles, letter flash cards, scrabble pieces, foam bath letters, letter cookie cutters and even letter stickers would work.

Little Hands-on ABC’s and 123’s is a bi-monthly feature that focuses on practical and simple ideas that you can do at home to help your tot develop their letter and number skills.

Little Hands-on ABC’s and 123’s ~ Number Stamping

 

Emily and Juliette love using rubber stamps to make pictures, so I decided to turn them into a learning activity too.  We used our Melissa & Doug Baby Farm Animals Stamp Set and Emily had a great practicing her numbers with it. 

  

I folded a piece of white paper to make 8 even spaces.  At the top of each box I wrote the directions.  For example, I see 4 red pigs.

First, Emily read the directions.  If you are doing this with a younger child you could read the words to them and if possible have them read the number. 

Then she used the animal stamps to fill in the boxes.  If you don’t have a stamp set you could also use different types of stickers.  Emily counted to herself while she was working and then we counted together to make sure she had the right amount.

This activity was great for numeral recognition, practicing 1:1 correspondence, fine motor skills and color recognition.

Little Hands-on ABC’s and 123’s is a bi-monthly feature that focuses on practical and simple ideas that you can do at home to help your tot develop their letter and number skills.

Little Hands-on ABC’s and 123’s ~ Alphabet Cover Up

Juliette, like most little kids LOVES stickers.  She usually sits and makes pictures by sticking them onto the paper. Recently I have been noticing that she also likes to show me things that are the same and play matching.  So, I thought I would have her do a matching activity with our ABC stickers. 

First, I made an Alphabet Grid with the letters from A-Z (you can click on the above image to print).  You could easily write the letters on a piece of paper too.

Next, I picked out a set of ABC stickers and cut them apart so that I had 26 letter stickers.

I was originally going to have Juliette sit and just match the stickers up, but she was having fun running around so I thought we would make it a little more like a game.  I put all the stickers in a basket at one end of the room and then taped the Alphabet Grid on the wall at the other end of the room. 

Juliette started by the grid and ran to the basket, picked a sticker and brought it back.  We talked about the letter and the sound that it made then she found it on the grid and covered it with the new colorful sticker.

Juliette loved being able to run to the letters, we counted 1,2,3 go and then she would run to get another sticker.  You could also have your child skip, hop or jump to get the stickers too. 

After about 6 letters she was tired and we took a break, then we did a few more later in the day at her request!

This activity ended up packing in a lot of great skills in a very fun way.  We practiced letter sounds, letter names, fine motor skills, gross motor skills and matching.

Little Hands-on ABC’s and 123’s is a bi-monthly feature that focuses on practical and simple ideas that you can do at home to help your tot develop their letter and number skills.