Alphabet Lesson Plans: Teaching Your Preschooler at Home
While teachers and day cares can use their specialized training to educate your child there are many ways that you too can provide important lessons to your pre-schoolers�and have fun doing it! These alphabet lesson plans will help you give your child a head start or the extra help they may need.
Learning about letters
There are many aspects of the alphabet to focus on, depending on your child’s current level of knowledge. Letter recognition and phonemic awareness are two important skills to focus on for pre-school aged children. Phonemic awareness is basically an awareness that of the basic sounds made by each letter of the alphabet. The following alphabet lesson plans will help teach your child some of these important pre-reading skills. You can adapt the lessons content based on your child’s level of knowledge.
General Tips for successful alphabet lesson plans
1) Use your child’s interests to get them motivated. If your child has a favorite character incorporate them into the lessons. This may mean purchasing a book or video where that character teaches about the alphabet. For example, I have been able to purchase Elmo’s ABCs and Thomas’s ABCs at local discount stores. Your library is also an important resource for children’s books that help teach the alphabet.
2) Keep it short and simple. Attention spans are limited for pre-schoolers so set realistic goals. Plan on 10-30 minutes.
3) Be organized. Have all your materials ready and have a schedule in your mind of the order in which you will present things. This will help maintain your pre-schoolers attention during these alphabet lessons.
5 simple alphabet lessons
1) Alphabet Posters. Choose one letter of the alphabet per lesson. Have your child use a sticker, stencil, or magazine cutout of the letter you are focusing on to label the page. Discuss the sound this letter makes. Use magazine cutouts to make a poster of things that start with that letter of the alphabet. You can easily include your child’s interests and favorite characters by using them as illustrations for the appropriate letter. For example, find a picture of a train for T if your child loves trains.
2) Writing/Tracing Alphabet Letters. For some creative ways to help your child learn to write letters consider filling a flat baking tray with shaving cream and guiding your child in tracing the letter into the shaving cream. You can also have your child scrape the letter shape into a thin layer of paint applied to construction paper with a plastic utensil or the wrong end of a paintbrush. Work your way through the alphabet but you may want to start with letters with easier shapes rather than simply going in alphabetical order. For example C, O and S may be more manageable than letters such as B and F.
3) Eat the alphabet. Coordinate your lunches/snacks with the letter being learned. Here are some suggestions: Apples, Bananas, Carrots, Doughnuts, Eggs, French Fries, Grapes, Hotdogs/Hamburgers, Ice Cream, Juice, Ketchup, Lollipops, Mango, Nuts/ Noodles, Oranges/Oreos, Pistachios / Pizza, Raspberries, Sandwiches/Salad, Tuna, Vegetables, Watermelon, Yams. For less commonly used letters, use cookie cutters or a sharp knife to cut cheese slices, sandwiches, cantaloupes or cookies into the shape of the letter.
4) Alphabet Scavenger Hunt. Using construction paper cut out several sizes and colors of the letter you are focusing on. Also cut out other unrelated letters. Place the letters around the house and lead your child on a scavenger hunt to find the letter that is the focus of your lesson. You can use “hot/cold” feedback to guide your child to the letters. For younger children you can place all the letters in plain view and have your child gather all the letter A’s as quickly as possible. For older children you can incorporate upper and lowercase letters, have them count how many letters they found, or have them name something that starts with that letter each time they pick one up.
5) Alphabet Art. If you are teaching your child in the presence of friends you may be able to have the children form the letter with their bodies by lying on the floor. You can photograph this and the photos can then become an alphabet poster, a photo album, or they can be incorporated into other alphabet books and pictures.
Also consider using colors to tie in to your alphabet letter. For example, have your child paint a large letter B with the colors blue, brown, or black and talk about how the names of these colors start with the B sound. Other suggestions: an aqua A, a cream C, green g, a lilac L, a maroon M, an orange O, a purple or pink P, a red R, a teal, turquoise or tan T, a white W, a yellow Y.
Other resources
Be sure you use the internet to help you come up with lesson plan ideas. There are many teachers who put lesson plans on the internet in their entirety. Crayola.com also offers lesson plans and arts and craft ideas that you can print. There are also several companies on the internet that provide professionally developed lesson plans for parents who wish to home school their children.
