Green Olives & Ham

Shamrock alphabet match

With a little more than a week away from St. Patrick's Day, we're going to be focusing on some shamrock, leprechaun, and St. Patrick's Day posts this week.

In this Shamrock alphabet match game, the children match the upper case letter to the lower case letter.  My daughter and I put the upper case letters on the floor.  She then matched all the lower case letters.




Shamrocks are such an easy shape to work with, and if you put multiple sheets of paper together, it won't take you so long to cut the alphabet out ... twice.  And if you have a child who is old enough to use scissors, then they can help you cut out the shapes.

I would have loved to take this game outside.  Lay the shamrocks on the pretty green grass.  One problem with that plan ... no green grass yet ... just white snow.  It's only a matter of time though, and we'll be singing ... "and the green grass grows all around, all around, and the green grass grows all around."

- Michelle

Tools for Learning the Alphabet

I've been working on preparing some alphabet activities, so I thought I would share some great (in my opinion) tools for learning the alphabet.  These are just a few things that help children become familiar with the letters of the alphabet.  Once they are familiar with the letters, then they can begin the "Letter of the Week", which introduces children to the sounds that each letter makes.

The first one, we have had for a long time, and I really believe that it has been the best thing for my daughter in learning the alphabet song and letter recognition.  It is the Leap Frog Fridge Phonics Magnetic Alphabet.  It gives the letter, the sound the letter makes, and even sings the alphabet song when someone presses the small green button. 

And speaking of "S" is for small, this is a 3 + item.  The letters are small and do not pass the paper towel roll test, but we've had it on our refrigerator for awhile, and I love it.

I also love the idea of getting an alphabet rug.  We have the foam one with the numbers 0-9, but we do not have an alphabet one.  The foam ones also do not work well on a carpeted floor, which is what we have.  But I found this rug on Amazon, which would work pretty well.

They also have some great alphabet rugs at Lakeshore Learning, but "E" is for expensive!

I must admit that my daughter is a Nick Kid.  What's a Nick Kid, you ask?  Well it's a child who absolutely loves Nickelodeon.  I know, and if you've read my blog for awhile, you know that television for children these days is a sensitive issue.  But again, "M" is for Moderation. 

So since my daughter loves Dora, we made an alphabet book by printing pages from nickjr.com.  Every once in awhile, my daughter will run around the house going "Where is my alphabet book"?  And when she finds it "Hola Isa".

 

Alphabet Puzzles:

This puzzle from Melissa & Doug is recommended for 3+. 

Books:

And remember "I before E except after C" isn't all it's cracked up to be.  Weird!

- Michelle