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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