1-2-3 Come Do An Alphabet Craftivity With Me

So that I could get a handle on the ability of my  new students, I always liked to do some fun assessing of my first graders the first week of school.  

Testing and assessing students can be tedious and overwhelming for young children, as well as time consuming for you.  Keeping that in mind, I designed Alpha Bird.

Precut "Alfie's" body parts from a variety of colors of construction paper.  Students choose the pattern pieces that they want, and glue them to their paper plate bird body. 

To expedite things, I'd fold the paper plates and staple them shut ahead of time, leaving the bottom middle open so that students can insert their alpha-bird legs.  

For extra pizzazz I added several feathers for a tail.  You can buy a bag full at The Dollar Store.

Students cut and glue the alphabet strips to make Alfie's legs. When everyone has completed their alpha bird, play "I Spy" by calling out a letter. 

Students find and trace both the upper and lowercase letters.  When they  have done so, children raise their hand, so that you know that everyone is done. 

With just a glance, you can see who is struggling.  Call on a child to choose the next letter.  Play 'til all of the letters have been traced.

Alfie offers a simple, quick and interesting way to whole group assess, while providing a nice review of upper and lowercase letters.  The birds also make a stunning hallway wall border.  Simply tie a yarn loop at the top and suspend from the ceiling.  Caption: "We know our letters and that's something to TWEET about!"

Click on the link to grab a copy of this fun FREEBIE: Alfie the Alpha Bird. 

"If plan B doesn't work, don't give up; the alphabet has 25 more letters!" 

1-2-3 Come Practice Letter Recognition With Me!

The more you emmerse your kiddo's with letter activities, the more likely the light bulb of understanding will easily come on.  Although important, trace and write worksheets, can become tedious and boring after awhile. (skill-drill & kill) It's important to give little learners a variety of hands-on activities.

I try to think up ideas that involve some sort of crafty aspect.  Children LOVE these; they provide fine motor skill practice, and completed projects make great bulletin boards and wall displays, that help build a child's self-esteem.  I call today's quick and easy letter "craftivity" Search & Find. I strived to do at least one activity a month that recycled something, so using old newspapers to trace on, fit the bill and the results look terrific.  These are wonderful for a seasonal Daily 5 activity too!

Here's what to do:

• Print off the fall-themed templates.
• Cut out; trace onto an old file folder and then trim. 
• Make several templates to expedite tracing by students.
• Allow children to choose a shape and trace it on a page of the newspaper, that has plenty of writing on it. I try to include several standards when I design an activity, so I made a prediction page to practice some math skills. 
• Students cut out their shape, and fill out the prediction part of the data on the matching worksheet. (Common Core State Standard: 1.MD.1)

Students find and circle the upper and lowercase letters that the shape starts with.  i.e. If a child chooses an apple, they will search for Aa’s. I tried to think up themed-shapes for fall, and added a football, to help excite the boys in your class.  To make this a bit more difficult for older students, have them search and circle all of the letters that are in the WORD and then tally or total, how many of each letter they found.  

When they are done, students color their newsprint craftivity, with a watercolor marker or highlighter, so that the newsprint still shows through.

Students glue their work to the matching worksheet and fill in the data. Older students can use the greater, less than, or equals symbol, to show THEIR answer, to the correct answer.

When everyone is done, you can graph how many of each beginning letter, that your class found, counting by 10’s.  Write each child’s amount on the board and show the addition, one step at a time, to get to a grand total.

Before graphing, have students predict which letter they think they will find the most of, and why. Click on the link to view/download the Search & Find Alphabet Craftivity packet. For more Alphabet FREEBIES, click on the link, to pop on over to that section of my site. Enjoy!

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"Those with a lively sense of curiosity, learn something new every day of their lives." -Unknown

I Spy A Letter!

My Y5's really enjoyed playing games.  It was a hands-on fun way to get all sorts of life-skills and standards covered in a short amount of time.

I designed "I Spy A Letter." with those concepts in mind, as they will help teach: Common Core State Standards:RF.K1d, L.1.1a

I Spy A Letter is a very versatile packet. Although the picture shows lowercase letter samples, the packet also works on recognizing and practicing uppercase letters in an interesting way as well.

Your students will enjoy becoming ABCDe-tives as they spy letters and then trace them.

They will also like making a slider. Sliders are simply the upper and lowercase letters of the alphabet, listed vertically on two separate strips of paper.  Students slide their strip through two slits that make a viewing "window".

You can use this packet for table top worksheets, Speed games, or even as an interesting and less stressful assessment tool.

I've also included traceable upper and lowercase letter flashcards with a cover, so students can make Itty Bitty booklets, a tip sheet of what else you can do with the traceable cards, + "kaboom" bomb cards to make games even more fun.

There's an upper and lowercase  trace and write worksheet; an upper and lowercase "I Spy!" tracing game sheet, that can double as an assessment tool; + the "craftivity" upper & lowercase letter slider for girls and 1 for boys. 

These too can be a fun "I Spy!" game, or used as an assessment tool.  Finally, I've also designed an ABCDe-tective certificate of praise.

Click on the link to view/download the "I Spy A Letter" Packet.

Thanks for visiting. Feel free to PIN anything from my site. (Create, teach, SHARE!)

Do you have an alphabet activity you could share with us? I'd enjoy hearing from you. diane@teachwithme.com or post a comment here.

"Worlds can be found by a child and an adult bending down and looking together under the grass stems or at the skittering crabs in a tidal pool." -Anonymous