Teacher Resources, Teaching Resources
Teacher Resources, Teaching Resources
....A Contribution from our Free Teaching Ideas Directory....


Letter play activities for literacy centers

In my classroom I team teach with another year 1 teacher two mornings a week for a 2 hour literacy block.

In this time we run literacy center activities which encompass a variety of areas including semantics, rhyming, writing centers, free play/home corner and letter play activities.

Below are some letter play ideas I have used and collected over the last seven years as both a literacy support teacher & early childhood curriculum officer in District Office visiting schools in my area. Hope they are useful!

Letter Play Ideas
• Letter formation (ref Literacy Centres for the Early Years p.12)
Students will form letters using a variety of materials:
- laminated sentence strips with letter formation directional arrows
- Magna Doodle
- plastic tray, cake tin or container with sides to hold salt or sand
- letter formation cards with directional arrows
- whiteboards/chalkboards
- letter shaped biscuit cutters & playdough
- Wikki Stix or pipecleaners
- Letter templates

• Letter Matching Activities(ref Literacy Centers for the Early Years p.14)
Students will match upper & lower case letters.
Provide:
- magnetic letters, upper & lower case, all sizes, different colours
- rubber stamps
- link letters
- two sets of cards: one with upper case and one with lower case letters
- a small alphabet poster or strip
- felt letters
- ABC puzzles

• Letter Search
Circle, highlight or cut out nominated letters
Materials:
- magazines
- newspapers
- photocopied familiar texts
- Also refer to Letter Collage (ref Literacy Centers for the Early Years p.19)


• Letter sorting(ref Literacy Centers for the Early Years p.17)
Sort multicolour letters according to letter, shape, colour, upper & lower case. Model first.
- magnetic letters, upper & lower case, all sizes, different colours
- rubber stamps
- two sets of cards: one with upper case and one with lower case letters
- a small alphabet poster or strip
- letter tiles
- whiteboard
- overhead projector
- cut out letters in a variety of font types


• Letter Sequencing
Encourage students to manipulate letters and put in alphabetical order
Materials:
- magnetic letters, upper & lower case, all sizes, different colours
- rubber stamps
- link letters
- two sets of cards: one with upper case and one with lower case letters
- a small alphabet poster or strip
- felt letters
- ABC puzzles
- Scrap paper
- crayons

• Trace & glue
Trace around large cardboard cut outs of letters, glue or draw pictures that match letter within the outline

• Whole class
- address book (in alphabetical order of course)
- name book e.g. Amazing Antoine, Darling Denise
- A-Z of…dinosaurs, magical creatures etc.
These can be added to as each child rotates through table activities.

• Name Work(can also be adapted to reinforce spelling/sight words)
Provide class list or name cards so can copy others’ names also
- look for letters of own name in magazines/newspapers. Cut out & glue.
- Magnetic letters
- Playdough
- Clickbricks
- Whiteboards/blackboards
- Necklaces with alphabet beads/card letters with hole punched through
- Printing/stamping – make class set of letters by gluing string onto card/blocks of wood.
- Trace over names with glue & stick wool over or sprinkle with glitter/sand
- Trace over names with crayon, paint with edicol dye
- Write name, trace around outlines of each letter ‘til fill page.
Also refer to Literacy Centers for the Early Years p.15

Comments for
Letter play activities for literacy centers

Click here to add your own comments

Mar 13, 2009
Thank you
by: David

As I am going into my final prac of 12 weeks I have to say that your suggestions for the early years writing is fantastic thank you. They are practical and that is what we need.

Sep 15, 2008
Fabulous
by: Fairlie

Will certainly be saving these ideas for use at the start of next year with my Preps!

Sep 13, 2008
Great ideas!
by: Katherine

Wow this is a comprehensive list of activities, thanks so much for taking the time to submit these. These activities are ideal for any Kinder class and I will be using many of these in my own program.

Click here to add your own comments

Join in and write your own page! It's easy to do. How?
Simply click here to return to Ideas for Teaching the Alphabet





Back to Free Teaching Ideas Directory....




NEW! Don't Miss Your..
FREE RESOURCE
EACH MONTH
Exclusive to Newsletter Subscribers
Email

Name

Then

I promise to use your email address only to send you K-3TeacherResources.com Newsletter.



sites-for-teachers-logo
sites-for-parents-logo
teacher-resources-teachnology-logo





Stay Up-to-Date

Join our Feed via EMAIL or RSS


feedburner



Customer Feedback

"Hi Donna I have just been into your site and it is FANTASTIC! I am a Support Teacher and to have these resources at my fingertips are great....and so easy to help teachers when looking for interesting ideas to inspire learning. Keep up the fabulous work!I am SO glad I found you and became a member."

Dear Donna, I just wanted to take the time to write to you and let you know that after 19 years of teaching and searching endless bookstores and internet sites for the perfect resources, I have finally found what I consider to be THE BEST WEBSITE EVER...YOURS!!!!!
More customer feedback...



COPYRIGHT K-3TeacherResources.com 2007-2009
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
A division of Chris Elliott Consulting Pty Ltd, Manly Aust.
Teacher Resources for Australia, United States, United Kingdom and More....
Template Design
Copyright© 2007-2009.
Related Posts with Thumbnails