s is for...

I have decided to start creating initial sounds tubs for Little Boo.  The idea is that each tub contains items that begin with the initial sound.  We will be sharing these tubs with you every week and our progress on learning the alphabet.  I really want learning the alphabet to be a fun and interesting activity for Little Boo so I think that this will really help.

I am hoping that this can be a joint venture as creating the tubs will hopefully be really interesting as well. Today we are starting with the letter s for seaside.  I also wanted to start learning the alphabet firstly covering all the letters in Little Boos name.  Even though I am not a preschool teacher I use a lot of sensory activities at work to teach the alphabet as I find that this is very effective when working with adults with severe learning difficulties.  The ability to be able to feel and handle a 3D letter is more engaging.  Being dyslexic myself I also think of ways that I would of liked to have been taught the alphabet basically we need to have fun!

We first of all decided to make pretty the letter s that I made ages ago.  I have been waiting to decorate this the idea is at the end we will have a full set of our own alphabet.  I realise that I have not detailed very well how I made these so will revisit this post and take more pictures. I made my own purely for the fact that I wanted lower case letters and wanted them in a suitable typeface.

The letter s had loads of stars stuck to it and it looked very sparkly by the time it was finished!

Then just a few simple games to reuse those cd cases! I made these up in a few minutes and they were a hit! I was unsure about the finding the letter s one but Little Boo did really well. I am going to get a box set up of these all ready to play with.

I managed to pick up these lovely pebbles from a local shop to be honest we love the noise they make but they were also great for placing on the letter s.  We later placed glow in the dark stars in the shape of the letter s and looked at this in our den, great fun.

We have made a start on our letters book.  For this I have used a sandpaper and bubble wrap letter s in the centre. The idea with this is that Little Boo can feel the letters with her hands and feet.

There was a selection of images that Little Boo could choose from which all begin with s.

Very keen to feel the letters 

After all of this we then had fun choosing what to put in the initial sounds tub

A while ago I posed about sparkly letters this activity could also be done to help write the letters.

When it came to bed time I asked Little Boo to spot the s in the book she did really well.

Whilst doing the crafts today we listened to music and it really helped Little Boos concentration. Why have I not thought of this sooner?

We have also now done letter a activities as well  hope that you enjoy this as well.  The letters are now a Weekly feature so be sure to check back whilst we share a letter a week.

Peg out the Alphabet

Whilst doing our Bear Hunt activity I thought about using the washing line for an alphabet theme. Little Boo loved pegging out the letters. At first we just pegged out the letters then I thought we could add items that began with the letters.

I went into the kitchen and emerged with an apple, banana and Little Boos Crocs! Little Boo did well and may even be able to match them herself after a while. We only did up to d (as I happened to spot Dogger in the living room). To do the activity I just printed out some letters (comic sans is probably best font to use due to formation of the letter a) placed them in the plastic wallets (with a little help from Boo, it also makes it easier to peg them on) placed two of our dining chairs in the living room then used wool around them to make the line.  I stayed with Little Boo the whole time we did the activity for safety as well at to help her complete it. Hope this has given you some inspiration it is a really simple activity.

Our completed line

Improving Fine Motor skills using pegs.