Alphabet Time

Gabby's favorite alphabet song by Tilly and the Wall from Sesame Street.

For a few months Gabby and I have been working on her letter recognition. She already knows "o" thanks to a shirt I wear to bed. I haven't decided whether she should learn them in alphabetical order, or the letters in her name first. Until the last week she has shown no interest in looking at her name written or singing songs about her name (songs include spelling her name to the tune of "Bingo," a song one of her toys sings spelling her name, cheering, the typical alphabet song, the one from Sesame Street, and random tunes I've made up), but I am proud to say we are finally starting to enjoy singing songs about the alphabet!! When at Grandma's she was playing with a baby Leapster toy that plays only a small portion of the letters at a time Gabby will sing along and get the letters correct, which makes me very proud of her!  It's so cute to see how excited she gets.

Other fun ways we have been working on her letter recognition include:

• Pointing to Letters on shirts
• Gluing macaroni onto letters I've cut out of construction paper.  Each time she glues a noodle I say something about the letter, like "Oh your 'A' is looking great" or "Glue another noodle on the 'A'".
• When we are at a restaurant and they give her a word search we will choose a letter and I will help her circle all of the targeted letters we can find in the word search. I love this because she is learning and behaving in the restaurant!
• We get 3 or 4 letters (numerous different cut outs of each letter) and glue each one on a page saying "m" is for "mommy" or glue a "d" for "daddy."  Thanks to Grandma we do this activity and when she sees an "m" she still doesn't say the name of the letter but she says "Mommy".
• I bought a puzzle of all the letters and we place them in the puzzle together, but she only has an attention span long enough to do about half of the puzzle before being bored.
• We have flashcards, but she isn't really interested in them unless she already know the answers so I mix about 5 animals or pictures she know to every one new letter I am trying to teach her so she feels successful and enjoys the activity.
• We've also just drawn letters with glue and then sprinkled glitter 
• We have fun magnetic letters for the fridge she loves playing with as well.
• We put a dab of finger paint in  a Ziplock and I put a piece of paper with a letter drawn on it for her to trace.

I also plan on the following activities:

• Putting letters (maybe the ones from the fridge) in rice and having her fish them out
• Putting letters in Easter eggs and having her open them
• Fishing for magnetic letters with a magnet

The ideas are endless. My goal is to make it fun and not feel like work so she WANTS to do the activities.  Hopefully she will start learning her letters soon.

Here is another song that Gabby loves that teaches the letter "T."  I am sad to admit that I catch myself singing this song a little too often, but hey if it's catchy enough for me hopefully it's sinking into her little brain.