Felt Alphabet Letters
 

Ask any child if she knows the alphabet and she'll likely start singing the well-known tune for you. But knowing the song and being able to identify letters are two different things. Learning to recognize letters and the sounds each letter makes is an important skill your child will learn in preschool so that when she reaches kindergarten, she can start stringing sounds and letters together to make words and sentences.

What You Need:
Flannel board
Fabric scraps
Red felt, 26 pieces pre-cut to 3.5" x 4" each
Fabric glue
Ruler
Poster board
Rubber cement
26 pictures, each image representing a different letter of the alphabet
Clear laminate stickers
What You Do:
Help your child to cut out each letter of the alphabet with the scraps of fabric. Each letter should be 3 inches tall.
Have your child attach one letter to a piece of red felt using fabric glue. Repeat this for all 26 letters.
Help your child to glue all 26 pictures to the poster board using rubber cement. During this part of the process, ask her to say the letter the picture represents, as well as what is in the picture. Example: "C" is for cat, with a picture of a cat.
Measure and cut the pictures into 3 ¼" x 3 ¾". Laminate the mounted pictures.
Encourage her to glue felt onto the back side of each laminated picture. This will help them stick to the flannel board.
Ask her to set out all of the letters and pictures and to prop up the flannel board.
Now, have her attach the felt alphabet letters onto the flannel board in alphabetical order, saying each letter out loud as she sticks it to the board.
Then, have her match the pictures to the letter that starts with the same letter or sound. Encourage her to sound out the name of what the picture represents as she places it next to the letter.
Helpful Tip:

Use half of the letters at a time if your flannel board is too small to accommodate the entire alphabet matching game.

By Ellen Dean