Alphabet Printable Activities

Hello!  It's that busy time of year we all love as teachers.  Everyone is ready to run out the door including yourself to get all the holiday errands and shopping done.  I know...I know.  It's hard to keep the little ones motivated in these last few days of school.  Especially my little kindergartners who could not wait to see what presents they would get or what trip they would take.  This time of year it's hard to teach any new concepts and it's a great time to review some concepts that some of them may be struggling with.  

   I have some ideas to share to help you get through the holidays.  Here's one that I have always used to keep my students motivated during center time.  These alphabet puzzles were always a hit with my preschoolers when I worked with that age group and my kindergartners.   I keep them on hand when I need to keep my students motivated through the holidays.  You can grab them here for free.

One other activity that I have also used to reinforce the alphabet is this one.  

We can never get enough practice identifying the lowercase letters b and d.  And I'll let you in on a little secret.  This free pack has silly glasses the kids can make to help them remember the difference.  Color them red and green to make them go along with the holiday or add some fun holiday stickers.  They are learning and having fun. Instructions are included.  Grab this freebie here.  

If your spend a little time grabbing this freebie....don't forget to check out this game that goes along with it.  And guess what?  It's free too.  :)  

Before I go...I wanted to share with you two other activities that I've just recently added that would make great morning work, center activity, items for the substitute folder, or just something to add for students to do right before or after a holiday activity.  Just a warning...these are not free but very affordable.  :) You can grab it here and here.   

Have a wonderful holiday.  

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The Teaching Bug

Hands on Letter Recognition Activities

I can not say enough about hands on activities in the classroom when I work with kindergarten students who need a little extra help with letter recognition.  Before we can read we need to know what we are reading and letter recognition plays a big factor in that step. 
                                                          Stay tuned for freebies!!!

Some of the resources we use in my own classroom are a lot of games and activities that promote letter recognition. 

1.  One of the first things we are going to do this year is add these letter recognition puzzles to our small group time .  I plan on printing them out on cardstock , laminating , and cutting apart the pieces for independent monitoring of students to informally assess their recognition knowledge. 

You can grab the set by clicking on the picture: 

2.  Magnetic letters or Clothespins are always used in my letter recognition activities.  Some of the cards that I typically use during small group work work well with these manipulatives.  The students match the letter on the card and I typically begin using these cards with my little learners who need to start with uppercase letter recognition.  We always begin there before adding lowercase. 

Click on the picture to grab your set:

3.  Finally we work on adding our letter recognition notebooks to the morning work.  I feel it is necessary to keep all of my students on the same page and these pages also work great during guided reading groups.  Students practice writing the letter, identifying them in a short story as we track the words in the story, identify letters in different fonts, and locate pictures that have the beginning letter sound.  I love using these pages with my small groups. 

You can grab them here:

These are just a few of the many things I use with my kindergarten small groups when we are just starting out learning to read.  They are easy enough to print and go and address learners at all stages of their learning. 

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The Teaching Bug