It is never to early to start working on reading and counting. Bellow you will find some fun activities to try with your child to help get started! We’ll start with some really basic places to start and move forward to some more advanced activities.
For this activity, I taped down a large piece of paper with all the letters and numbers written on it, and used the pieces from the other puzzles. I resisted the urge to do a typical rainbow order with the letters, and instead matched the colors to the puzzle piece. This helped him match them. I would say, “Can you find the purple A?” I ended up taping this to the back of my cutting mat and he has asked to this activity over and over.
This is a magnetic letter search. I covered our letter fridge magnets with a mixture of rice, oatmeal, and beans. I gave Asher a little magnet wand to search around for the letters. For Asher finding the letters and talking about them was enough, but you could add a letter matching element for an older child.
For this activity I made little paper pockets on the wall using construction paper and painters tape. I then made little paper letters again matching the colors (red A, red pocket) Asher loved putting the papers in the pockets, and especially enjoyed ripping it all off the wall later. He definitely did not do a lot of matching, but at this age its more about the repeated exposure to the letters and sounds. You could also do this with numbers by putting up the pockets with the numbers and putting different quantities into each pocket. This would be ideal for a slightly older kid.
I got these great letter and number cards of Amazon. I think they were about $13. This is another great way to match letters to words, and to have a visual quantity attached to each number. So for the number 10 they have a picture with 10 piranha. They come with all the cards and little wooden letters that fit right into the grooves. These are a nice way to practice because inevitably the cards get knocked around but because the letters fit right in they don’t go flying. They also came with a little bag to keep everything in so they clean up really nicely.
This sidewalk chalk alphabet wash was probably Asher’s favorite. Add water to an activity and it is 10 times more fun. He worked on this for at least 30 minutes. I started by writing out all the letters(I couldn’t resist a rainbow moment), I then got him a little water bucket, a sponge, and little water dropper (a turkey baster would work). You can say, “Can you wash away the letter B?”. He really liked using the dropper to wash everything away. You could also easily do this with numbers, colors and shapes. With numbers you could maybe start with 10 shapes and wash them away one at a time and count as you go.
I hope these letter and number activities are fun learning activities for your little one. I’d love to hear from you if you try them out. Please like, share, and play!
Turtlelion 