Materials
- Construction paper or poster board
- Glue
- Variety of items (see following page)
What to do
1. When introducing letters of the alphabet to three-year-olds, teachers often use a "letter of the week" format. Each week, you will make a "collage" shaped like each letter, decorated with something that starts with that letter (see below).
2. Depending on your preferences and the number of children in your class, you can give each child a cut-out letter to decorate or the children can work together to make a giant collage of each letter on poster board. As you progress from week to week, display one collage for each letter in the classroom.
3. Following are some suggested materials for each letter. You can vary them as you like, using whatever materials you have on hand that start with each letter.
A - acorn prints (acorn caps dipped in paint) or ants made from fingerprints
B - buttons, birdseed, beads
C - crayons (glue on the little stubby leftovers), confetti
D - doilies, dominoes (cheap set from the dollar store)
E - eggshell pieces (dyed, then crumbled up)
F - feathers, flowers (dried/pressed or artificial from craft store), felt pieces
G - glitter, gum wrappers (we chewed the sugar-free treat while we glued!)
H - hearts (stickers or cut from tissue paper or other colorful paper)
I - icicles (the shiny kind from a Christmas tree)
J - jingle bells (from craft store)
K - kisses (this is my favorite the children put on lipstick and then kiss the paper!)
L - lace, leaves
M - play money, magnets
N - strips of newspaper, nickels
O - oak leaves, octagons and ovals (cut from paper), pictures of owls
P - pipe cleaners, "puff balls" (from craft store), pennies, paperclips
Q - "quilting" pieces (fabric cut into triangles and squares try to make patterns), Q-tips
R - ribbon, rubber bands
S - stickers, stars (cut out or stickers), Silly String (from party store, comes in a squirt can)
T - tin foil (cut out shapes, watch for sharp edges), tape (the children love pulling pieces off the tape dispenser!), taffy
U - umbrella cutouts
V - Valentines (leftover), Velcro, velvet (scraps from a craft store)
W - watercolors
X - "X" marks the spot X's from our treasure hunt (see below)
Y - yellow yarn
Z - zippers (from craft store)
More to do
Literacy: Once you have gone through the alphabet and all the letters are displayed on the wall, put a bunch of objects in a bag. Encourage the children to take turns pulling out an object and then running to the letter it starts with.
Art: When learning the letter Q, bring in quilts for the children to examine. Make a class quilt in which each child decorates a square (paper or fabric).
Games: For the letter X, have an "X marks the spot" Treasure Hunt. Hide some familiar classroom objects marked with a red X cut from construction paper. Give the children verbal clues or a map to find them. Save the X's to glue on that week's letter collage.
-Suzanne Pearson, Stephens City, VA
Instructions
1. Encourage the children to put each item into its matching color bag.
Encourage the use of color words as children make the matches.
2. When the children are ready, hide all the items, give each child a different
bag, and encourage them to go on a "color hunt." Encourage them to find
the items that match their assigned color. (Be sure to make putting the objects
back part of the task.)
3. You can also use these bags at clean-up time. Encourage the children to use
the bags to pick up all the play items of that particular color.
Note: To make this activity more durable, sew simple drawstring bags using
colored fabrics.
More to do
Home-School Connection: Send the bags home with children to encourage
them to look for things at home that are a particular color.
Literacy: Write or attach a label with the color word spelled out to encourage
letter awareness.
